
I 




THE 



Religion of the Fami 



REV. If W/ WILEY, D. D. 



C INC INN A TI: 
HITCHCOCK AND WALDEN. 
NEW YORK: 
CARLTON AND LANAHAN. 
1872. 



BY 





• W5 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by 

HITCHCOCK & WALDEN, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



REFACE. 



E have designated this little volume by the 
somewhat strange title of The Religion 
of the Family," because we wished to in- 
dicate that in its pages the family is recognized as a 
sacred institution, coming from the wise and benefi- 
cent appointment of the Creator, and, therefore, 
subject to such laws as he has attached to it. We 
believe the family has a deeper significance than 
merely that of uniting persons of opposite sexes to 
live together and gather offspring about them, and 
that it has wider relations than those merely of a 
social and transient character ; that God, its author, 
has designs and purposes to accomplish by it, both 
with regard to the welfare of human beings in their 
social relations, and with regard to his Church and 
Kingdom on the earth. The successive chapters of 
the volume are intended to indicate and enforce 
these sacred relations and purposes, and to bring to 




4 



PRE FA CE. 



bear, in these times of reckless assertions with re- 
gard to the family, the authority of God in behalf of 
its claims and obligations. We have, therefore, 
thought this Divine side of marriage and its duties 
could be well enough indicated under the title we 
have chosen. 

Our thoughts have been directed to people who 
regard God and respect his Word ; people who, after 
all, will still constitute the preservative element in 
society, and turn back to the oblivion they deserve, 
the unwise and unchristian purposes of rash men 
and women who seem ready to cast aside all author- 
ity, and trample all experience beneath their feet. 
On these last we expect to have but little influence ; 
but if we can confirm and deepen the convictions of 
wise and good people with regard to the sacredness 
of marriage, its inviolability, except in accordance 
with God's law, and of the permanency and moral 
relations of its claims and obligations, we shall have 
accomplished our object. 



THE AUTHOR. 

Cincinnati, Nov. i, 1871. 



ONTENTS. 



Pagb. 

I. The Origin of the Family, .... 7 
II. The Marriage Relation, .... 21 

III, Benefits and Obligations of Marriage, . 35 

IV. The Same — Continued, .... 48 
V. The Husband, .61 

VI. The Wife, 80 

VII. The Wife — Continued, 98 

VIII. Parents, 122 

IX. Concerning Divorce, 153 

X. Political Relations of Women, . . 185 
XI. What Can Women Do? 214 



THE 



RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 

I. 

THE ORIGIN OF THE FAMILY. 

I HANKS to the man who wrote the 
imperishable song, ^'Home, Sweet 
Home !" It is an offspring of mod- 
ern times ; it could not have been conceived, or 
written, or sung in eloquent Greece, in warlike 
Rome, or in all the effeminate East. It is a 
Christian anthem, dedicated to the lares and 
penates of Christian households. It has trilled 
on a thousand tongues, and taught ten thousand 
hearts to feel and appreciate the significance of 
Home ! How deep a spell that little word con- 
tains ! It is the circle in which our purest, best 

7 




8 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 

affections move and concentrate themselves — 
"the hive in which, like the industrious bee, 
youth garners the sweets and memories of life, 
for age to meditate and feed upon !" It is child- 
hood's temple, and manhood's shrine — the ark 
of the past and future. 

The soldier dreams of it as he sinks to rest 
on the red field of slaughter, when the fierce 
fight is done. Let but the bugle of a light regi- 
ment play " Home, Sweet Home " far away on 
the battle plains of the Crimea, and a thousand 
hearts rise into the throats of brave warriors, 
and silence creeps into every chatting circle, 
and many a soldier's head turns aside from the 
watch-fire to listen to the air that carries the 
memories back to the far-off firesides they have 
left behind. 

There are few passages in classical literature 
more beautiful or affecting than that where 
Xenophon, in his Anabasis, relates the effect 
produced on the remnant of the ten thousand 
Greeks, when, after passing through dangers 
without number, they at length ascended a sa- 
cred mountain, and from its peak and summit 
caught sight of the sea, whose waves, far in the 
distance, broke on the shores of their beloved 



THE ORIGIN OF THE FAMILY. 9 



Ionia. ^'Dashing away their bucklers, with a 
hymn of joy they rushed tumultuously forward. 
Some wept with the fullness of their delicious 
pleasure, others laughed, and more fell on their 
knees and blessed that broad ocean. Across 
its blue waters, like floating sea-birds, the me- 
morials of their homes came and fanned their 
weary souls. All the perils they had encoun- 
tered, all the companions they had lost, all the 
miseries they had endured, wxre in an instant 
forgotten, and naught was with them but the 
gentle phantoms of past and future joys." O, 
Home ! magical spell, how strong must have 
been thy influence when thy faintest memory 
could cause those bronzed heroes of a thousand 
fights to weep like tearful women ! 

But what is home? It is that charmed circle 
consecrated by the presence of a husband, 
adorned and beautified by the taste and skill 
of a wife, hallowed by the virtues of a father, 
sanctified by the gentle ministrations of a 
mother, and filled with joy and sunshine by the 
love and prattle of children. In the quaint 
Scottish brogue of Burns, it is where a man's 

"Wee bit ingle, blinkin' bonnily, 
His clean hearth-stane, his thriftie wifie's smile, 



lO THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY, 

His lisping infant prattling on his knee, 

Does a' his weary, carking cares beguile, 

And makes him quite forget his labor and his toil." 

Home is of divine origin — an idea in the 
mind of the Creator, and only reaches its true 
character and full significance when it conforms 
to the original appointment of God. Adam was 
alone ; all other creatures had their fellows, but 
as yet no companion was in existence capable 
of being the associate of this highest creature 
of the new creation. " It is not good," said the 
Lord God, "that the man should be alone ; I will 
make him a help meet for him," not of the dust 
of the earth, as I have made him and every 
beast of the field and fowl of the air, but in 
such a manner as that she shall be part of his 
own life, bone of his bone, and flesh of his 
flesh, so that they shall cleave together in a 
holy union, deeper and dearer than that of any 
other relation. 

There is something peculiarly impressive and 
instructive in the production of this companion 
for man. She was not created simultaneously 
with himself. He stood alone. All other creat- 
ures had their companions, appeared in the 
creation male and female together. But a les- 
son must here be taught the newly rising pair, 



THE ORIGIN OF THE FAMILY, 



II 



and through them the future race — a lesson on 
the importance and significance of this sacred 
union; a lesson on the mutual dependence of 
these two beings, of the imperfection and in- 
completeness of the one without the other, on 
the intimate and endeared relationship which 
was ever after to be continued between them. 
Hence woman did not appear along with man ; 
not until he had seen and felt himself alone, 
incomplete and imperfect in the vast and beau- 
tiful creation about him ; not until he had him- 
self, perhaps, sighed for fellowship and com- 
panionship in his own kind. Nor then was a- 
companion created for him out of the ground ; 
that would have been cold and meaningless. 
It answered well enough for the transient union 
and intercourse of the inferior creatures ; it 
would not have answered for the permanent, 
deep, and spiritual union which was to take 
place between these higher creatures. The 
companion of man appears under imposing and 
impressive circumstances. Adam sleeps, and a 
part of himself is taken and employed in this 
new creation. She appears before him as if 
she had risen from his own side, from near his 
own heart, a companion springing up from the 



12 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



depths of his own life. How he must have 
been impressed with this wonderful production 
of his future companion! He recognized and 
felt the lesson; and ''Adam said, this is now 
bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh ; she 
shall be called woman, because she was taken 
out of man." And, then, from the way in which 
our Savior puts it, it seems as if God himself 
broke in upon Adam's soliloquy and said, 
" Therefore shall a man leave his father and his 
mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they 
shall be one flesh." The force of this language 
is much better felt through the Hebrew than in 
our English version — therefore shall she be 
called Isha^ a female man — and because of this 
wonderful manner of creation, and this tender 
and profound relationship to man, it shall be 
the tenderest and most sacred of human rela- 
tions, and a man shall leave even father and 
mother and cleave to his wife. Evidently this 
creation of woman was not, in the estimation 
of either God or Adam, a mere beautiful side- 
play, but was intended for a profound and sig- 
nificant les'son for all coming time. 

Not only did this impressive production of 
the woman secure this foundation of a sacred 



THE ORIGIN OF THE FAMILY. 1 3 



and endeared union between man and woman, 
but it also secured another purpose of God 
which he declared when he said, "It is not 
good that the man should be alone, I will make 
a help meet for him." Not a helpfnate as we 
often hear it, but a help meet for him^ a com- 
panion worthy of him, an associate proper for 
him, his equal, his counterpart, his second self, 
one that he can love, and in whom he can find 
the complement of himself, and who finds her 
complement in him. 

Much has been said and written with refer- 
ence to the relative strength and capacity of 
man and woman in the attributes of human 
nature. By some, woman is made to be the 
duplicate of man, his equal in all respects, in 
intellectual and moral endowments his fellow; 
by others she is exalted far above him, at least 
in respect to the finer sensibilities of human 
nature ; and by others still she is made to occupy 
a position greatly inferior, at least in the scale 
of intellectual endowments. 

We have no sympathy with these compari 
sons and contrasts. There is no real place for 
them ; they are two distinct beings ; sex is not 
a mere physical variation ; it is a radical, a con- 



14 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



stitutional difference. Woman is not another 
man, man is not a duplicate of woman. A du- 
plication of the same being was not the design 
of the Creator, nor would it serve the purposes 
of the mysterious union he intended between 
them. Marriage is not a friendship ; it is vastly 
more. Friendship in itself is beautiful enough. 
Tender, indeed, was the friendship of Jonathan 
and David, of Damon and Pythias, and it is 
possible, however dangerous, that there may 
exist a ^'Platonic intimacy" and friendship be- 
tween man and woman, but it is not love, and 
Platonic intimacy is not marriage ; it is 'vastly 
different both in kind and in degree from the 
profound life union of husband and wife. 

Nor is woman man's inferior, a mere depend- 
ent upon his pleasure or his affection. She 
need not be either 

"A weakling girl who would surrender will, 
And life, and reason, with her loving heart, 
To her possessor; no soft, clinging tiling 
Who would find breath alone within the arms 
Of a strong master, and obediently 
Wait on his whims in sla\dsh carefulness ; 
No fawTiing, cringing spaniel, to attend 
His royal pleasure, and account herself 
Rewarded b^'- his pats and pretty words ; 
But a round woman, who, with insight keen, 
Has wrought a scheme of life, and measured well 



THE ORIGIN OF THE FA MIL V. 1 5 



Her womanhood — her brain and heart meanwhile. 
Working in conscious harmony and rhythm 
With the great scheme of God's great universe, 
On toward her being's end." 

She is his equal, his fellow, the companion 
mee^ for hijn made by God. They are equal^ 
but not identical; they are not intended for the 
same office and work in the needs of human 
life. It is his to think, to toil, to provide, to 
lead ; it is hers to feel, to reward, to endure, to 
follow. It is his to go out to battle with the 
world, to meet its contests, to carry forward its 
history, to wrest from it the means to provide 
for, to protect, and defend the sacred kingdom 
of home. It is hers to cheer and encourage, to 
aid and comfort, to meet with the smile of ap- 
probation and the reward of love the returning 
hero, the wayworn traveler, the weary laborer, 
the care-worn merchant, the exhausted student. 
It is his to produce ; it is hers to weave the 
results of his toil into blessings. It is his to 
make the world wiser, and richer, and better; 
it is hers to make the world purer, more happy, 
and more beautiful. Possibly he may have the 
more intellect, certainly he has a larger brain; 
what of it? She has the greater sensibihty, 
and is more richly endowed in those finer quali- 



1 6 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY, 

ties that we call heart. He may have more 
strength, certainly has a larger frame, more 
compact bones, and powerful muscles. What 
of it? She is more beautiful, and her gentle- 
ness is her strength. He may have a broader 
comprehension, she has deeper insight ; he may 
have better reason, she has deeper sympathy; 
yet we can not say that one is superior to the 
other, any more than we can say painting is 
superior to sculpture, or poetry to music, or 
birds to flowers. The man is not without the 
woman, neither is the woman without the man." 
"He that made them in the beginning made 
them male and feinale^^'' made them in beautiful 
harmony and adaptation to each other. 

In spite of the so-called progress of modern 
times, and of all we have seen written or heard 
spoken on the rights and wrongs, the demands 
and destinies of woman — and we have read and 
heard much — we have seen nothing to convert 
us from the old and sublime lessons floating 
down to us from the lips of the Creator, and 
from the morning of the creation. In spite of 
the sneers that have been heaped upon the 
word, we still believe the Creator had a lofty 
design in the manner of woman's creation, and 



THE ORIGIN OF THE FA MIL Y. I 7 



that he assigned to her, as well as to man, her 
own peculiar "sphere" and work, her own place 
in the economy of human hfe, and that there is 
no higher place or work on earth than the Crea- 
tor has given to woman. What loftier, more 
potent, more sacred sphere is found in the world 
than home ? What hoHer names are found be- 
neath the sky than wife and mother ? Home — 
the household — we still believe, is the sphere 
of woman, and woe be to both man and woman 
when the world repudiates it, or woman discards 
it. She was not made for the toils, the strifes, 
the excitements of the busy, outside world, and 
man and society are at fault when they thrust 
the necessity for it upon her. Gentleness is 
stamped upon her in all respects, and not only 
is a meek and quiet spirit her greatest adorn- 
ment, but it is the most essential characteristic 
of her nature. In proportion as she departs 
from it, she so far loses in the grace, the beauty, 
and the power of her character. In the busy 
world she is lost — at home she shines as the 
sun and center. Let her be slow to exchange 
it for any thing else. 

Nor should she be ashamed of this position. 
She should rejoice in it, as the sphere in which 



i8 



THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



she remains supreme. Nor should she be 
betrayed into underestimating its importance. 
What would life be for either man or woman, 
if it were not for this vast sphere of female use- 
fulness and acti\dty? if it were not for homes, 
for domestic joys, for fireside virtues, for social 
relations.^ What is the mere bald picture in 
its naked outlines, uncolored, unadorned, un- 
shaded? So what would human society be 
without the softening tints, the gentle shadings, 
the mild beauties thrown over it by the hand 
of woman ? What would the world be if it were 
not for singing birds, for blooming flowers, for 
sloping hills, for beautiful landscapes, and for 
star-lit skies ? So what would human life be if 
it were not for the beauty, the virtue, the bliss, 
which spring up, and bless, and adorn it in this 
sphere of action which God has assigned to 
woman ? If the great Creator himself thought 
it not unworthy of his labor to adorn the home 
of his human creature with beauty, and to throw 
over all his works a veil of harmony and peace, 
let not woman think it an undignified position 
when God has placed this department of life 
and of the world in her hand. Because the sun 
shines by day, shall the peerless moon blush to 



THE ORIGIN OF THE FAMILY. 1 9 



ride in her chariot of silver through her domin- 
ion of stars by night ? 

Woman's ambition should be to shine at home, 
to shine in the social, beautiful, and peaceful 
scenes of life. In this very day society has no 
greater want than rest, homes of peace, where 
both men and women can find relief from the toil 
and excitement of the busy life we are living, and 
every woman who makes and preserves such a 
home is a benefactress of the race that needs 
not blush before the philanthropist, or the phi- 
losopher, or the statesman. So sings one of 
the brightest ornaments of the sex : 

*'As some fair violet — loveliest of the glade, 
Sheds its mild fragrance on the lovely shade, 
Withdraws its modest head from public sight, 
Nor courts the sun, nor seeks the glare of light, 
Should some rude hand profanely dare intrude, 
And bear its beauties from its native wood. 
Exposed abroad its languid colors fly, 
Its form decays and all its odors die, 
So woman, born to dignify retreat. 
Unknown to flourish, and unseen be great ; 
To give domestic life its sweetest charm. 
With softness polish, and with virtue warm ; 
Fearful of fame, unwilling to be known, 
Should seek but heaven's applauses and her own." 

We say nothing here of woman's rights. She 
has one right at least that all concede, which 
gives her power to rule the world, to do what 



2 0 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY, 



she will with it, if she but cares to wield it. 
But the one spring of her power is the spring 
of the divine power, and of the power that hes 
in all nobleness and goodness, the power to 
love, to bless, and to save. 



II. 



THE MARRIAGE RELATION. 

HE creation of man and woman under 
the beautiful and impressive circum- 
stances recorded in the Word of God, 
and reviewed in the previous chapter, is itself 
the Divine institution and the Divine definition 
of marriage. ^' He that made them in the be- 
ginning made them male and female," and said, 
" For this cause shall a man leave father and 
mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they 
twain shall be one flesh." ^'Wherefore," says 
the Savior, "they are no more twain, but one 
flesh." These, it is to be remembered, are the 
words of God himself, as they are declared to 
be by Christ, and not, as they have often been 
supposed to be, the words of Adam. God made 
man male and female for this end, and in these 
words delivered his own ordinance to mankind, 
at once creating a more imperative union than 
that of parent and child, and permitting and 

21 




22 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 

directing a dissolution of the filial relation, that 
the parties might henceforth leave father and 
mother and cleave to each other. Not that 
parental affection should cease or perish, or the 
filial relation be abrogated, but that it is safer 
for society, and better for the race, that the un- 
ion of man and wife should be more indissoluble 
than the relation of parent and^ child. Nor 
could this have been an ordinance for Adam 
alone. Adam had neither father nor mother, 
and he was married by God himself, so that he 
neither needed, nor was this sacred ordinance 
adapted to him.. It contemplated his posterity, 
and was the ordinance of marriage instituted in 
the beginning and applicable in all times and 
for the whole race. The law of intercourse be- 
tween man and woman is marriage, and mar- 
riageonly — a union, too, designed from the very 
beginning to be the union of one man and one 
woman. 

Thus introduced by God it is perpetuated and 
regulated through all the subsequent relations 
of his Word. In the New Testament, Christian 
marriage and the Christian family are recog- 
nized and blessed both by the Savior and his 
apostles. Our Lord himself recognizes and 



THE MARRIAGE RE LA TION. 23 



sanctions this holy estate, yields reverence and 
obedience to the parental relation, and adorns 
the marriage of Cana with his presence and 
first miracle. Indeed, he not only recognizes 
it, but his purity and wisdom, his gentleness 
and lovingness seemed necessary to a percep- 
tion of its mysterious import and high signifi- 
cance. He it is who is capable of lifting it out 
of the corruptions and abuses of ages, and of 
exalting it to its true import and sanctity by his 
heavenly lessons with regard to it. Rising 
above the abuses of scribes and Pharisees, and 
even above the accommodations of Moses, he 
restores the significance and authority of the 
original institution. He rescues the wife from 
the degradation of a vassal or even an inferior, 
by wresting from the husband the power of ca- 
pricious divorce, and by placing about this holy 
estate greater safeguards, by his more carefully 
defined and more stringent rules with regard to 
a dissolution of this union. 

He himself and his apostles make use of 
marriage as a beautiful and expressive figure of 
the mystical union between Christ and his 
Church. '•'•Thy Maker is thy husband^^'' is one 
of the most endearing allusions and most pa- 



24 TH^ RELIGION OF THE FAMILY, 

thetic appeals of God to his people. " I will 
marry thee, yea, I will marry thy land," is one 
of the most tender and significant promises of 
the Bible. The highest revelations of the Di- 
vine character in its relations to men are taken 
from the family. '■^The Father^^ is the highest 
conception that even Christ can give us of the 
blessed God whom he makes known to men, 
and THE CHILDREN OF GoD is the highest pre- 
rogative he can confer on them that love and 
fear him. To express the tenderness of his 
love for his people Christ presents his Church 
as a bride adorned for her husband, and under 
the figure of his marriage with this bride pre- 
sents the glorious consummation of his media- 
torial reign. It is, indeed, the New Testament 
and the lessons of Christ, the latest and com- 
pletest revelations from God, which have given 
true dignity, sanctity, and felicity to this holy 
estate, and determined the true relations of 
man and woman, husband and wife. In the 
light of these revelations let us study it more 
fully. 

I. Marriage is a sacred instittUio7i. The 
Scriptures are clear on this subject. It is of 
Divine origin and appointment. We receive it 



THE MA RRIA GE RE LA TION. 2 5 



from God, and it is subject to his laws alone^ 
and not to laws of men. It is older than human 
governments, and is among those things for 
which men are accountable to God, and for the 
use or abuse of which they must finally answer 
to him. Christian governments may and should 
recognize it, regulate and guard it, as they rec- 
ognize and regulate the holy Sabbath. But it 
is not originated by them, nor is it their prov- 
ince to change its significance or modify its 
obligations. God made it, and his laws alone 
control it. The conditions of entering into it 
and of separation from it, are fixed in advance 
by him, and human legislation can neither legal- 
ize it nor grant divorces from it, except in ac- 
cordance with its significance and God's ap- 
pointment. 

Marriage is not, then, as we too often hear, a 
civil compact, but a Divine ordinance, and 
"what God has joined together, let not man 
put asunder." 

"God never made his work for man to mend." 

We have many would-be reformers in the pres- 
ent day in almost all departments of social and 
moral hfe, and among them domestic reformers, 



26 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 

socialists from abroad and sensualists at home, 
who are only able to conceive of liberty in the 
light of licentiousness, and who have grown 
weary of the just and wholesome restraints 
necessary for the very existence of society; 
men and women who would be v/ise above what 
is written, and who, looking upon the word and 
institutions of the Creator as antiquated and 
inapplicable to the times, would turn our do- 
mestic institutions and relations upside down. 
And, forsaking the wise institutions of God, 
what would they substitute ? Spiritual lovism, 
mesmeric attractions, unions of affinity, promis- 
cuous marriage, popular divorces, parentless 
children, husbandless wives, motherless homes, 
and social anarchy ! 

2. Marriage is an honorable mstitntion. 
"What God has made pure let no man call 
common or unclean." God has pronounced it 
honorable in all, and when mistaken sanctity 
has set it aside, history has demonstrated that 
the consequences are but little less fatal than 
when licentiousness has ignored it. It was in 
the world before sin was, and is the only pure 
thing that has come down to us from before the 
Fall. God himself performed the first marriage 



THE MARRIAGE RELATION. 



27 



ceremony amid the purity and sanctity of Eden, 
and the grandeur and beauty of the sinless 
Paradise, while the "God with us" made his 
first public appearance, and introduced his min- 
istry on earth by his first miracle at the mar- 
riage in Cana of Galilee. We have always felt 
the fitness and beauty of the opening of this 
divine ministry in the family ; that Christ's 
first work should be in the home. Here he 
touches, recognizes, and sanctifies the very roots 
of society. All begins with the family ; here is 
infantile humanity, the germ that is to grow and 
become the man, the nation, the Church ; out 
of this first sanctuary are ever going forth the 
forces of society; in this charmed circle Relig- 
ion is ever to find her first and most genial 
home. The anointed Messiah therefore begins 
his sacred ministry for the world at the very 
foundations of human life — he sanctions and 
blesses first of all a true marriage ! 

3. It is a 2iniversal institution. It is not 
simply a relic of Jewish antiquity. It began 
before Abraham, the father of the Jews, was 
born. It began before the Flood. It dates its 
origin at the beginning of the race. It was 
God's first institution for the benefit and wel- 



28 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY, 

fare of mankind, appearing, probably, within 
\ the first holy week, when the new world and 

the new race wxre just rising into life. It is 
radical, lying at the foundation of human things. 
It is not simply a law or institution of Chris- 
tianity, it is the law of the race. 

4. In itself considered, it is a solemn co7npact 
or covenant made between two parties, made in 
the fear of God, not in the light of a civil com- 
pact, but of obedience to a divine ordinance — 
an agreement of which God himself is a witness 
and on which is invoked his blessing. It is a 
compact made in view of the responsibilities 
of time and eternity, made solemnly and per- 
petually as the basis of a life union, founded 
on the purest affection and most upright designs 
of the parties. 

5. It is not only a compact or covenant in 
wdiich two persons agree to live together, but it 
is a pi^ofound union of two hearts^ a union so 
intimate that it amounts to a mysterious iden- 
tity. ^'They twain shall be one flesh." ''This 
is a great mystery," says the apostle. They 
are no longer two, but one, one in all duties, 
interests, hopes, and pursuits. Their lives are 
blended into one life. Those who enter into it 



THE MA RRIA GE RE LA TION. 2 9 



should understand that ever after there is but 
one end to seek, one rule to acknowledge, one 
hope to animate, one cup of weal or woe to 
share. There can be no separate interests ; 
the first appearance of this is the entering wedge 
which separates their hearts, is the rising cloud 
which is to darken their future lives. The smile 
of Heaven must bless, or a frowning Provi- 
dence depress, both alike. Hand in hand they 
must tread the same pathway, be it through dark- 
ness or in the clear sunlight, over flowers or on 
thorns. This mysterious and profound oneness 
is the emphatic significance which the Creator 
gave to the marriage relation, and is the founda- 
tion on which Christ rested his stringent law 
of divorce. 

6. The only true basis of marriage is affection. 
Following in the light of the Great Book which 
utters the words of Eternal Life, we are not 
ashamed to say the first and essential bond of 
marriage, and the charm which casts the bright- 
est radiance over it, is Love. Who has not 
felt its power, and who has not seen its beauty 1 
Beautiful every- where ; in the gay and happy 
world of life about us ; beautiful when it paints 
rainbows in the face of the babe, whose spark- 



30 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 

ling eyes beam it out like jrising sunshine on 
the parent; beautiful in childhood, to whose 
joyous laugh it gives the sweetest ring ; beauti- 
ful in the family circle, as it sparkles in the eyes 
of the loving sister, and throbs in the heart of 
the manly brother, drawing them together^ the 
one to lean upon a brother's arm, and feel the 
safety of the love that is there, the other proud 
of the purity and innocence of the affection that 
throbs in a sister's heart ; beautiful in the wife, 
as she lays her head on the husband's breast, 
and there consecrates to him and to God her 
heart and life; beautiful in the husband, as in 
the pride of a manly devotion he throws his 
protecting arm around the dependent wife ; beau- 
tiful in the mother, as it looks out through her 
gentle eyes, beams in her loving face, trembles 
in her household song, mellows in her maternal 
voice ; beautiful in the father, as it nerves him 
for his toil and makes his heart strong as he 
goes forth to work for those he loves ; beautiful 
in the evening, when returning weary, and worn, 
and tired of the busy world, he takes off the 
incasings of his heart, and cools and blesses it 
in the atmosphere of home. 

We repeat, the only true basis of marriage 



THE MA RRIA GE RE LA TION. 3 1 

is affection. Upon no other condition does God 
sanction or bless it. Entered into upon any 
other consideration it ceases to be marriage, 
and is degraded into the insignificance of a mere 
civil compact. Not for the sake of alliances of 
interest or distinction, not for the sake of for- 
tune or rank, not for ambition, avarice, con- 
venience, or sensuality is this holy estate to be 
invaded. Love, an exclusive love, which sees 
in its object the being whom of all others it 
would draw to itself, is the golden chain which 
is to bind these hearts, is the sacred principle 
which is to sanctify this union. It is the pillar 
of cloud which is to throw. its shade over their 
dwelling by day, and the pillar of fire which is 
to illuminate their sanctuary by night. And 
this affection must never be suffered to cool ; it 
must ever burn and glow like the star that keeps 
watch in the midnight sky; or like the swan, 
whose whiteness gathers new luster with age, 
and which utters its sweetest note in death. 
This duty does not often fail on the part of 
the wife ; the danger is in the busy, money- 
loving and money-getting husband. We do 
not like the man that does not love his wife 
and home. Such a man ''is fit for treason, 



32 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 

stratagems, and spoils ; let no such man be 
trusted." Unprincipled, or thoughtless, or sadly 
deceived must be the man who can forget that 
she has left all to follow him ; that she has 
turned the tide of her affections, hopes, duties, 
and destiny away from all others to concentrate 
them all upon him, whom her confiding faith 
has believed to be worthy of her trust and affec- 
tion. In that confiding faith she has come to 
place her heart, her life, in his hands. Such 
faith demands the ever-answering love of her 
husband. 

"There is no one thing," said Leigh Hunt, 
"more lovely in this life, more full of the divine 
courage, than when a young maiden from her 
past life, from her happy childhood, when she 
rambled over field and moor around her home ; 
when a mother anticipated her wants and soothed 
her little cares ; when brothers and sisters grew 
from merry playmates to loving, trustful friends ; 
from the rooms sanctified by the death of rela- 
tives ; from the secure backgrounds of her child- 
hood, and girlhood, and maidenhood, looks out 
into the dark and unilluminated future, away 
from all that, and yet, unterrified, undaunted, 
places all that future in the hands of a stranger 



THE MARRIA GE RE LA TION. 33 

she has seen and loved." Surely every true 
man will tenderly cherish such an offering of 
affection, and will bear long, and suffer much, 
before he will forget or trample upon such con- 
fiding love. In marriage woman risks most, 
nay, she risks all. She gives up all for one. 
If that one be true, manly, faithful, she feels a 
recompense for her loss ; but if he be false, 
cowardly, and treacherous, she can only pine in 
secret, and lament the hour when first she hs- 
tened to the heartless words with which he 
deceived her young and trusting heart. 

What are styled among us marriages of con- 
venience or of interest are but civilized forms of 
actual barbarism. The Zulus of Africa trade 
off a young ox for a wife ; in China the parties 
never see each other till the contracts have 
been signed ; the Hindoos betroth their chil- 
dren at an early age, and without the least refer- 
ence to the inclinations of the parties. No 
wonder, we say, that among these people matri- 
mony is in general at first only a farce, and 
often afterward a tragedy. But how much bet- 
ter than these customs of barbarism is the 
annual auction of females at our prominent 
watering-places ? 

3 



34 ™^ RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 

No nearer to the true significance of marriage 
are what may be called "marriages of despair,'' 
when disappointed parties hurry off to cover 
their chagrin or to inflict a fancied vengeance 
by a hasty marriage. When the heart has 
loved, and has been defrauded of its love, it is 
but a fatal remedy to cast it away in a living 
sacrifice upon some other object. The wreath 
may be around the head, but the fire burns into 
the soul, and eats without consuming. Unless, 
then, the choice of mutual love precedes the 
holy vow, marriage is but a mockery, or but a 
vulgar provision for a settlement, or a reckless 
venture, and no wonder that in such cases the 
consequences are almost always fatal. 



III. 



BENEFITS AND OBLIGATIONS OF 
MARRIAGE. 



ARRIAGE is a happy state. This is 
the condition chosen and designed by 
God as the one most calculated to se- 
cure man's highest welfare and happiness. "It 
is not good for man to be alone," is a Divine 
opinion, and in the behef of it he made him a 
wife. Wedded Hfe is not all sunshine ; its paths 
do not all lead through beds of flowers and ave- 
nues of beauty; it is not all happiness; it has 
its cares, its crosses, its responsibilities, its self- 
denials, but it is capable of affording the highest 
happiness to be found in the present life ; it is 
the condition in which are to be found the rich- 
est supplies of peace and joy which the world 
affords ; it gathers around man and woman the 
circumstances capable more than all others of 
making them happy, and is that position in 
which, undoubtedly, the greatest amount of 

35 




36 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



happiness and the greatest number of happy 
people in the world are found. There are un- 
happy marriages, but the fault is not in the in- 
stitution, but in the individual. 

Marriage is a safe state, rvlen and women do 
not only want happiness, they want safety; they 
long for security. They live in a dangerous, 
tempting, sinful, changeful world; they need a 
place of safety and shelter, a quiet retreat from 
the busy world; in a word, they need a ho7ne, 
Man especially needs a place where he can feel 
that all is safe and trustworthy; where his in- 
terests, his welfare, his reputation, his plans, 
his heart are secure ; where there is no enemy, 
no spy, no hidden tempter; where his soul 
breathes easy, and his heart beats hghtly, and all 
around him is innocence, truth, and love. The 
world offers no such place but in the charmed 
circle of wedded love. 

No man has better summed up the benefits 
of this sacred relation than the famous Jeremy 
Tavlor. ]\Iarriao:e has in it less of beautv, 
but more of safety, than the single life ; it hath 
not more ease, but less danger; it is more merry 
and more sad; it is fuller of sorrows and fuller 
of joys ; it lies under more burdens, but is sup- 



BENEFITS A ND OBLIGA TIONS. 3 7 



ported by all the strengths of love and charity ; 
and those burdens are delightful. Marriage is 
the mother of the world, and preserves king- 
doms, and fills cities, and churches, and heaven 
itself. Celibacy, like a fly in the heart of the 
apple, dwells in perpetual sweetness, but sits 
alone and is confined and pines in singularity; 
but marriage, like the useful bee, builds a house, 
and gathers sweetness from every flower, and 
labors and unites into societies and republics, 
and sends out colonies, and feeds the world 
with deHcacies, and obeys their king, and keeps 
order, and exercises many virtues, and pro- 
motes the interest of mankind, and is that state 
of good to which God has designed the present 
constitution of the world." 

But these benefits of marriage, inestimable 
as they are, are such as accrue to the individ- 
uals themselves ; its broadest relations are, how- 
ever, to society. Marriage is the groundwork 
of human society and government, and the chief 
corner-stone of all rehgion and virtue. It is 
the fountain of families ; it is the source of all 
the tender relations, and of all the gentle and 
useful affections of life. Here in this garden, 
as beautiful and as fertile as Eden, spring up 



38 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



those tender life-bonds of husband and wife, 
father, mother, child, brother, sister, and all 
those ramifications of life-ties which link us 
together in families and in circles of endearing 
relations. Here are born and cherished those 
beautiful affections of conjugal tenderness, pa- 
rental love, filial piety, and brotherly and sisterly 
attachments, worth more than all the land and 
all the gold and silver of the world. 

From marriage also spring into life the forces 
which give birth to education, which ennoble 
industry, which develop economy, which inspire 
enterprise, and which prepare for freedom. That 
we have so much of these in American Chris- 
tian society is because the first of God's insti- 
tutions is -sacred among us. Sparta never pro- 
duced any thing great in the arts or literature, 
because she respected not the ordinance of 
marriage, while Athens, through her regard for 
the marriage tie, was the first in both literature 
and the arts. Ancient Rome held sway while 
she had such women as Lucretia, but when she 
became licentious her power passed from her. 

Says De Tocqueville, in his work on the 
United States, ''I can only ascribe the inspiring 
principle of American greatness to the sacred- 



BENEFITS AND OBLIGA TIONS. 39 



ness of their domestic relations, and the su- 
perior character of their women." And so it 
must be. Woman is the appointed preserver 
of whatever is good, and pure, and true in 
humanity. She is the first teacher. "The 
fountain of pubhc order, refinement, intelhgence, 
morahty, and rehgion," said Daniel Webster, 
"is not primarily the school, but the family. 
And over this fountain woman, as the wife, 
mother, sister, is the presiding genius. Let the 
enchanted wand which she there waves be 
guided by intelligence and virtue, and the whole 
mass of society, like Peter's sheet, is lifted by 
the. four corners toward heaven." 

Human beings, always ready enough to com- 
plain of evils that threaten them, and of suffer- 
ings that are actually upon them, are proverb- 
ially slow in recognizing their blessings and in 
tracing them to the sources whence they flow 
to them. We live in the highest civilization 
and in the enjoyment of the multitudinous bless- 
ings and comforts that flow to us from a state 
of society characterized by peace, refinement, 
courtesy, morahty, charity, and obedience to the 
great principles of law and order, and yet are 
exceedingly apt to forget that it is our superior 



40 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 

home-life and culture that lies at the bottom of 
all these grand characteristics of our civiliza- 
tion ; that in this fallen and disordered world 
the institution of marriage is the most potent 
instrument by far, among all our laws and insti- 
tutions, in sustaining and consolidating the fabric 
of society. And it is marriage, too, in the high 
significance and state of strictness to which it 
has attained in modern society, and under the 
fostering influences of Christianity, which alone 
is capable of producing these highest and grand- 
est results. Certain modern reformxcrs in their 
bold and far-reaching complaints of the so-called 
burdens and restraints of married life forget this 
fact, and that it is these very restraints entailed 
on society by the marriage bonds that make it 
the beneficent institution that it is. Marriage 
derives its essential and specific character from 
restraint ; restraint from the choice of more 
than a single wife; restraint from choosing her 
among near relatives by blood or affinity ; re- 
straint from the carnal use of woman in any 
relation inferior to marriage ; restraint from 
forming any temporary or other than a life-long 
contract. By the prohibition of polygamy it 
concentrates the affection which its first tend- 



BENEFITS AND OBLIGATIONS. 4 1 



ency is to diffuse ; by the prohibition of incest 
it secures the union of famihes as well as indi- 
viduals, and keeps the scenes of dawning life 
and early intimacy free from the smallest taint 
of appetite ; by the prohibition of concubinage 
it guards the dignity of woman, and chastens 
whatever might be dangerous as a temptation 
in marriage, through the weight of domestic 
cares and responsibilities ; by the prohibition 
of divorce, above all, it makes the conjugal 
union not a mere indulgence of taste and pro- 
vision for enjoyment, but a powerful instrument 
of disciphne and self-subjugation, worthy to 
take rank in that subtle and wonderful system 
of appointed means by which the life of man on 
earth becomes his school for heaven. Thus in 
the sanctity of the marriage tie between two 
persons is the symbol of a perfect humanity, 
and wherever it is broken the bond and symbol 
of a perfect society are violated. Wherever it is 
kept pure in a nation, the men and women of 
that nation will be strong in action and noble 
in thought; and history tells us, in many a 
voice, that an empire never fell till corruption 
had entered its homes. 

It has been Christianity alone which has 



42 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 

been able to restore and preserve to mankind 
this sacred institution in its primitive purity 
and significance, and even to enlarge its po^Yer 
and meaning. When we reflect for a moment 
how marriage stands related to the purposes, 
methods, and successes of Christianity, we do 
not wonder at God's care for its preservation, 
or at the Divine Redeemer's concern for its 
purity and perpetuity. Religion, the religion 
of God and the Bible, has given to man this 
beneficent institution, and it has given back its 
own powerful influence, and presented its own 
fruitful sphere to religion. Marriage, creating 
the household and the family, secures the only 
hopeful conditions for the existence and per- 
petuation of Christianity. Pure rehgion and 
undefiled before God and the Father, does not 
dwell with the sensualist, will not take up her 
abode in the midst of polluted and hcentious 
societies ; she seeks the quiet fireside ; she 
comes to nestle around the domestic hearth ; 
she seeks shelter amid the gentleness and purity 
of human homes ; she lives and grows only in 
her full strength and symmetry amid the tender 
affections and gentle charities that cluster around 
the altar of marriage. 



BENEFITS AND OBLIGATIONS. 43 



But marriage is not necessarily in itself either 
a beneficial or a happy estate; what the do- 
mestic life of any married pair shall be depends 
almost entirely on themselves ; they may fill it 
with harmony and peace, and may dwell in an 
atmosphere of benedictions, or they may per- 
vert it into a scene of discord, distrust, and 
misery, from which both parties would be glad 
to be free. But this perversion and consequent 
misery is not the fault of marriage, or chargea- 
ble against it, any more than are the sufferings 
of disease chargeable to the dehcate nature of 
good health. The Creator has instituted for us 
this kind of life ; but whether the fire shall burn 
brightly on the hearth and cast its mellow tints 
over a household dwelling in peace, and har- 
mony, and happiness, or shall cast its dim light 
in lurid shadows over scenes of discord and 
unhappiness, depends upon ourselves. Nor is 
the result a perplexing problem to solve. Mar- 
riage, like all other good things, has its laws 
and obhgations ; if these are observed the re- 
sults will follow as the Creator has ordained. 
To a few of these laws or vital principles we 
now turn our attention. The most vital of all 
we have already noticed as an essential part of 



44 I'HE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 

marriage itself, namely, mutual love. We do 
not prescribe this as one of the duties — it is a 
part of the thing itself, and wherever it is want- 
ing, whatever else the union of the parties may 
be, it is not marriage as God has ordained. 

After this, the first law of domestic life is 
mutual forbeara?ice. The importance of this 
to the married pair can not be overestimated. 
Marriage is a system of compromise and con- 
cessions. The parties are not angels, and if 
we sometimes almost think so in the ardor of 
affection we soon discover that we have been 
mistaken. The duties, cares, and intimacies of 
the married state, soon evolve to us the truth, 
that both husband and wife are but mortals — 
poor, feeble, erring creatures, the children of 
waywardness, selfishness, and sin. We are not 
long in discovering that our idol, though bright 
in our eyes as the sun, yet, like the sun, has 
spots in it. Nor should the discovery of these 
imperfections, or even of faults, estrange our 
affections, or create a feeling of disappointment 
which must lead to coolness and indifference. 
The true conclusion to draw from this discovery 
is, that to secure the harmony and peace of this 
unio7i at least we must compromise, and agree 



BENEFITS AND OBLIGA TIONS. 45 



to the rule of mutual forbearance and forgive- 
ness. We say mutual, for let each remember 
that if the husband has found faults and blem- 
ishes in the wife, she too has found them in 
him. "The road to home-happiness lies over 
small stepping-stones." SHght circumstances 
are the stumbling-blocks of families. " The 
prick of a pin," says the proverb, "is enough 
to make an empire tremble." The tenderer are 
the feelings, the more painful is the wound. A 
cold, unkind word checks and withers the blos- 
som of the dearest love, as the dehcate rings 
of the vine are troubled by the gentlest breeze. 

"The kindest and the happiest pair 
Will have occasion to forbear, 
And something every day they live 
To pity and perhaps forgive ; _ 
But if infirmities that fall 
In common to the lot of all — 
A blemish or a sense impaired — 
Are crimes so little to be spared, 
Then farewell all that must create 
The comfort of the wedded state ; 
Instead of harmony, 'tis jar, 
And tumult, and intestine war. ' ' 

Such, too, is the nature of true affection: 

**'T is gentle, delicate, and kind, 
To faults compassionate or blind, 



46 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY, 



And wall with S}Tnpathy endure 
Those evils it would gladly cure ; 
But angry, coarse, and harsh expression 
Shows love to be a mere profession ; 
Proves that the heart is none of his, 
Or soon expels liim, if it is." 

Again, the bus}^, precise, exacting man is 
most likely to be at fault. Tenderness, deli- 
cacy, and gentleness are the natural quahties 
of woman. Forgiveness is the most prominent 
attribute of the sex. Says the quaint Jeremy 
Taylor, ^'If man is refined, woman is double 
refined," and her very delicacy of feeling makes 
her silent, forbearing, and forgiving with refer- 
ence to her husband's faults. It is not every 
man that understands or appreciates the cares, 
and toils, and anxieties which gather round the 
faithful wife and mother; and she who bears 
them patiently, and for my sake meets them 
faithfully, deserves my patience and forbearance, 
and, above all, my tender sympathy, which is 
her greatest reward. The husband gains much, 
much in every way, who exhibits on all occa- 
sions this appreciating sympathy for his wife. 
He will soon discover how it cheers the heart, 
lightens the duties, and enwreathes with smiles 
the countenance of his wife ; and who does not 



BENEFITS AND OBLIGA TIONS. 47 

know that the very sunshine of the household 
is these smiles of his wife ? If we would have 
them, depend upon it we must make them. 
And while we think and say so much of the 
.cheering, approving smile of woman, let us not 
forget that the approving, affectionate smile of 
the husband is as the light of the eyes to the 
patient, loving wife. 



IV. 



BENEFITS AND OBLIGATIONS OF 
MARRIAGE.— Continued. 

HE second great law of the household 
is social intercourse and confidence. 
One of the strongest bonds existing 
around the fireside is that which arises from 
endearing social intercourse and the most un- 
qualified confidence. We know of nothing 
more important to the permanent happiness of 
the married pair, nothing more capable of bind- 
ing them together in a lasting union of interest 
and afiection. Nor, on the other hand, do we 
know of any thing more powerful and rapid in 
leading to estrangement, coldness, and indiffer- 
ence, than the want of this social intercourse, 
mutual confidence, and unity of purpose. 

Husband and wife are henceforth separated 
in an important sense from all the world, and 
from all other relations. This one has usurped 
the place of all the others, and henceforth they 

48 




THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 49 

are to make their own world, and secure their 
own happiness. Such a state creates its own 
interests and its own privacies, which should be 
known to the parties themselves alone. Suffer 
me here to exercise the privilege of the preacher 
and indulge in exhortation. "We would say, 
then, preserve the privacies of your own fire- 
side, your marriage state, and your hearts, from 
father, mother, sister, brother, and all the world. 
Between you let no third person come, to share 
the secret joy or grief that belongs to your- 
selves alone. Build your own quiet world, not 
allowing the dearest earthly friend to be the 
confidant of aught that concerns your domestic 
peace. Let moments of alienation, if they oc- 
cur, be healed and forgotten in after moments 
and years of faithful, devoted love; but never 
let the wall of another's confidence be built up 
between you and your wife's or husband's heart 
Unbosom freely your joys and sorrows, your 
hopes and disappointments, your griefs and 
fears to each other, but to no one else. Let 
each be to the other the sole confidant in the 
wide world. Nothing will more cement your 
hearts together." Above all things, let the man 
who would have a happy home be found often 
4 



50 BENEFITS AND OBLIGATIONS. 



at the fireside. Let not business, journeyings, 
associations, social gatherings, club-rooms, self- 
ish amusements, nor any thing else deprive your 
family of your society, your attention, and your 
care. 

In the hurry of business of the present day, 
home is apt to be forgotten, though the one is 
for time, and the other is for eternity. A few 
hundred dollars richer at a man's death will not 
compensate for the loss his family has sustained 
from the absence of his own society and atten- 
tion ; nor will the thought that he has a few 
thousands more to leave behind compensate 
him for the loss of social and domestic peace 
and happiness which has been the price of 
his gain. We blame not that wife who mur- 
murs and feels aggrieved, and grows cold and 
indifferent toward that thoughtless or unfeeling 
man who night after night leaves her to sit in 
solitude and dreariness, while he is off to the 
club-house, the theater, the billiard saloon, the 
bowling alley, or the convivial gathering, from 
which he too often comes home flushed with 
intoxication, or fresh from the gambhng-table. 
He receives even less than his deserts if he is 
met with sullen silence, with hidden tears, and 



THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY, 5 1 



finds a cheerless fireside and a heartless table, 
and a cold and unloving home on his waking in 
the morning. 

Side by side with this social intercourse 
should be the most unlimited confidence. The 
more of it the better. The more the husband 
gives of it to his wife, the more he will find she 
deserves it. The man who withholds this confi- 
dence from his wife, not only so far and so seri- 
ously breaks in upon the claims of this endear- 
ing relationship, but also deprives himself of 
the safest, most unselfish, most careful, deep- 
seeing, and judicious copartnership the world 
offers him. There is a trait in woman's char- 
acter which even in its relation to business no 
wise man will dispense with. I mean the keen 
moral insight of the female heart. Women, 
living as they do outside of the busy, skeptical, 
compromising world, will detect the moral bear- 
ings of an action with a rapidity that seems 
like instinct. Their intuitions, less disturbed ^ 
by worldly influences, are vastly more active, 
and more pure and reliable than those of men. 
Their sensibility to right and wrong is unspeak- 
ably more delicate. No man who has a good 
wife should be willing to dispense with this in 



52 BENEFITS AND OBLIGATIONS, 



any movement of importance. What if she is 
more timid, and careful, and upright? It may 
be the very thing you need. The steam-engine 
is very powerful and very useful, but it would 
be of little real benefit, and extremely danger- 
ous, if not wxll provided with brakes and safety- 
valves. We would fix the extent of this confi- 
dence by a rule of the eccentric Rowland Hill. 
This great preacher said, on one occasion, that 
there were two things he always told his wife : 
first, he told her every thing that concerned her ; 
secondly, he told her every thing that concerned 
himself. No man has a right to complain of 
the extravagance of his wife, who conceals from 
her the true state of his financial matters. 

Following this must be mutual endiadng es- 
tee7?i and 7^espect, It is an easy thing to catch 
a husband or wife ; it is a nice thing to hold 
one. We are all good anglers and marksmen, 
but many fail in bagging the game. All are 
adepts in setting traps and catching the birds, 
but how many seem to be totally destitute of 
all skill in making cages to hold them ! How 
bright, and beautiful, and happy, and joyous are 
all honey-moons, but how tame, and insipid, and 
cold, and flat are many households ! What a 



BENEFITS AND OBLIGATIONS. 53 



beautiful, and polite, and gentle thing is court- 
ship ; but in how many instances what a stale 
and indifferent thing is possession ! The fault 
is both antecedent and consequent; the error 
is before and after marriage. Said the peace- 
loving Penn, "Be sure you marry for love; but 
be equally sure you love what is lovely." 

In selecting a companion, those life-long 
characteristics should be chosen, which neither 
adversity nor sickness impair, instead of mere 
wealth, talent, or beauty, which an hour's mis- 
fortune or sickness may blast forever. Men 
and women both should marry in equality; they 
should be companions, capable of mutual guard- 
ianship and deferential care, not merely for food, 
and raiment, and physical comfort, but for the 
higher wants of the soul. They should be 
companions in every moral, and intellectual, 
and Christian sense — mutual helpers of each 
other's joy and promoters of each other's high- 
est welfare. Marriage is a school, wherein 
husband and wife should be reciprocally teacher 
and pupil. There is danger of unhappiness 
where one, in any respect, is much above the 
other. The young, romantic, thoughtless daugh- 
ter of a millionaire may, in a fit of morbid sen- 



54 I'HE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 

timentality and romance, consent to run away 
with her father's footman; but it will not be 
long till she will remind him of the fact, and 
use him as a footman still. Many a youth, in 
the warmth and enthusiasm of early hfe, sees a 
bright, and gay, and beautiful thing in his path- 
way, and picks it up thoughtlessly and hangs it 
about his neck as an ornament, but, alas ! he 
soon finds it is a millstone, ever dragging him 
down to the earth. 

But I have said the fault is subsequent as 
well as antecedent to marriage; the parties 
should not only be equal in marriage, but should 
grow equally and harmoniously after marriage. 
The first step toward separation often is the 
laying aside of the graces, the kindnesses, the 
attentions, which first won and captivated. It 
is ceasing to be careful, to be pohte, to be cour- 
teous, at home. It is the husband forgetting to 
repose confidence in the wife ; it is the wife 
rising out of her sphere of gentle submission 
into one of authority, boldness, and exaction. 
Some women are even weak enough to marry 
husbands to rule over them, and they generally 
receive their own reward. Such marriages are 
always unhappy, as the wife acknowledges she 



BENEFITS AND OBLIGA TIONS. 5 5 



marries a fool, and is obliged to drag him after 
her all her life, and in the end finds she has 
less advantage over him than she supposed. 
The restless, impatient, aspiring wife may often 
succeed in reducing her husband to a position 
of inferiority. But what does she gain ? She 
only degrades him in her own estimation and 
in that of the world ; and as he sinks she sinks 
with him, for the position of the family is not 
determined by the wife but by the husband. A 
termagant may gain victories ; but they are such 
victories as that of Pyrrhus ; they are her own 
ruin. When the parties begin to think meanly 
of each other's character, or judgment, or tal- 
ents, or appearance, there is but one step more 
to contempt, and then farewell to all domestic 
peace and felicity. When this begins, the deli- 
cate sentiment that belongs to the relation of 
man and wife is gone forever. If persons marry 
husbands or wives whom they do not profoundly 
respect, they are simply foolish, and must take 
the consequences of their silly blunder. If a 
woman marries a man of stupidity, in whose 
character she can not confide, she is still more 
foolish, and at the very beginning breaks her 
own holy vow to love, honor, and obey. 



56 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 

But another law of the true Christian house- 
hold is vniUcal soliciUcde for each other's salva- 
tio7i. Marriage, we have seen, is a divine insti- 
tution ; it is given to the world by God, and is 
projected on a religious foundation ; a vital 
element in it is the recognition of spiritual and 
divine things ; it is not given to the inferior and 
transient animals, and in any thing hke its true 
sense it is impossible among barbarous and 
uncivilized people ; in its highest meaning it is 
an institution for immortal, spiritual, moral, and 
intelligent beings, and its highest felicity can 
only be reached where these facts of human 
nature and destiny are distinctly recognized. 
No wonder that where all moral and religious 
principles are neglected, marriage should fail 
in many of its most beautiful and beneficent 
results ; it is simply expecting the best results 
of an institution, while the very elements by 
which those best results are produced are left 
out. The irrehgious household can not be a 
happy one ; and the fault is not in marriage, 
nor in the divine organization of the family, but 
in the simple fact that an essential element in 
the organization of the household is religion. 

It is not difficult to see at how many points 



BENEFITS AND OBLIGATIONS. 57 



religion touches the vital interests of the family. 
A recognition of the immortal life, and of the 
relations of the mswriage union in time to the 
endless life in eternity, gives dignity and sub- 
lime import to marriage ; the recognition of 
God as its author and of our responsibility to 
him gives solemnity and weight to the obliga- 
tions of marriage ; the divine grace and help 
secures cheerfulness in bearing its burdens ; a 
grateful heart gives sunshine and happiness; 
obedience to God's laws secures order and har- 
mony; pious examples wear away asperities 
from childhood, and mold the lives of children 
into goodness ; the consolations of religion are 
the only sure supports under those trials and 
bereavements which are sure to come to every 
home ; and the Christian spirit is the very at- 
mosphere of peace and good-will in which do- 
mestic happiness must grow. 

Religion in the family culminates in the family 
altar; without this the piety of the household 
is incomplete, however sincere and fervent it 
may be in personal or private manifestation. 
The piety of the family should express itself in 
a common prayer; that is, in a prayer which is 
the prayer of the whole family. When all bow 



58 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 

together, and the father as the priest of the 
family offers up the one prayer of the whole 
family, then we have before us the crowning 
glory of domestic piety and devotion, and we 
may be sure the divine blessing is resting on 
that home, and that love, harmony, order, and 
happiness are reigning in that household. Such 
a daily scene creates a peculiarly sacred atmos- 
phere in the family. It becomes one of the 
most sacred and precious recollections of child- 
hood. These pictures come up in fancy and 
stir up within us the dear home-feehngs in after 
years, brightest among all the bright scenes 
which sin has spared to our world. When 
religion sits hke an angelic presence by the 
fireside ; when calm content is nursed in the 
lap of simple trust; when the world is con- 
quered by the love that bears all and endures 
all; when all home duties are cheerfully per- 
formed, and the everlasting home is kept ever 
in view — then it is that marriage rises to a sub- 
lime type of the union that exists between 
Christ and his own body, which is his Church. 

How this interesting relation, this tenderest 
of all earthly ties, this link that will be a pre- 
cious memory at least in eternity, should inspire 



BENEFITS AND OBLIGA TIONS. 59 



a deep and abiding interest in the spiritual wel- 
fare of each other ! Strange that in the midst 
of the confidences and intimacies of married 
life so much reserve is so often found on this 
subject. Why should the forbidden topic in 
this most sacred relation so often be the hopes 
and prospects of a life that is future and eternal ? 
How many deep and poignant regrets are left 
behind, like poisoned arrows in the heart of the 
survivor, when ruthless death has come to sever 
this endearing union ? And death must come. 
This union, sacred as it is, must be broken ! 
" One must be taken, and the other left " — left 
overwhelmed with a desolation and sprrow to 
which nothing else is comparable. How bitter, 
then, the thought that all had not been done 
that might have been done to secure the eternal 
interests of the one that now is still in death ! 
To saint or sinner the most fearful thought that 
mingles with the solemnities of death, is the 
terrible fear that all may not be well with the 
one that has gone before; while, on the other 
hand, the sweetest thought and most powerful 
consolation are found in the well-grounded hope 
that the loved one is not lost, but has gone 
before to the place of greater joys and more 



6o THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



enduring unions. How glorious is the hope 
that they who have walked together in the 
commandments of the Lord here, will meet 
together again in the bright mansions above, 
where sin can not enter to mar their happiness, 
nor death to sever the bond of union! And 
this, in God's design, is the end and final con- 
summation of true marriage. "Wherefore, let 
us exhort one another daily while it is called 
to-day, and so much the more as ye see the day 
approaching." 




V. 



THE HUSBAND. 



T is amazing with what thoughtless- 
ness men often rush into the respon- 
sible relation of husband; with what 
an air of abandon they often take under their 
care and protection another human being, 
assume the responsibility of loving, cherishing, 
comforting, and keeping her in sickness and in 
health, of providing for her and the coming 
household, and of controlling to a very great 
extent her destiny, both temporal and spiritual. 
There is not on earth a more responsible posi- 
tion than that held by the husband and father. 
From the beginning he has been the recognized 
head of the family ; the duty of provision, of 
protection, and, by consequence, of directing 
the household, has rested on him ; though there 
has been in the advance of civihzation some 
softening of the former interpretations of these 
prerogatives of the man, and some lessening 

6i 




62 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 

of the apparent distinctness of the spheres and 
offices of husband and wife, still the time has 
not yet come when the headship or responsi- 
bilities of the husband can either be thrown off 
by himself, or taken from him by another. If 
it ever does come it will be accompanied by the 
death-knell of h'ome and the family, and will 
be the inauguration of social confusion, corrup- 
tion, and anarchy. 

We doubt not that as the world recedes from 
the ages of physical force, and advances more 
and more into the reign of intelligence and 
virtue, the seeming separation of husband and 
wife in the authority and responsibilities of a 
family will grow less and less, and especially 
wall this be the case in what is usually con- 
sidered the authority of the husband. When 
the w^orld was ruled by muscle, rather than by 
mind, the husband naturally and necessarily 
assumed his place of authority. The great 
and absorbing question of hfe then was to live ; 
the business of life was chiefly to provide for 
its maintenance, in the face of the odds that 
were against it. Human hfe then was a battle 
against unsubdued nature, against the wild ani- 
mals, and against hostile neighbors. Without 



THE HUSBAND. 



63 



the strength and the courage of the man the 
family could not then exist: it was his emphat- 
ically to create it, protect it, and provide for it, 
and in order to do this, it was his to control 
it. The house then was rather a fortress than 
a home, a place of safety rather than of virtue, 
culture, and happiness. As nature became sub- 
dued, as the wild beast was driven away, as 
hostile neighbors and tribes became reconciled, 
as mind triumphed over matter, and intelligence 
over force, the work of provision became easier, 
and that of protection less exacting. The for- 
tress became a home, and the home, for its main- 
tenance, created other duties and demanded 
other labors, in which the wife, as well as the 
husband, must take a large part. The distance 
between the two, therefore, in their relations to 
the family needs, lessened, and will continue to 
lessen, as intelligence and virtue increase, until 
they shall be equally important, and their duties 
and responsibihties shall harmonize in loving 
co-operation. 

Still, as we have said, no progress or change 
can annihilate the difference between man and 
woman, or confound the spheres of activity to 
which they are respectively adapted. Husband 



64 



THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



and wife can never change places. He can 
never become the maker of a home, the culturer 
of its virtue and refinement, the creator of its 
beauties and joys, or the fosterer of its affec- 
tions. This is woman's work. She can never 
become the provider for the family ; and when 
widowhood forces this necessity upon her, it is 
one of the saddest sights of our human hfe to 
witness her unequal struggles to win bread for 
her little ones, and "keep the wolf from the 
door;" the saddest sight, we have said, unless 
it be equaled by the condition of the man who 
is left, blundering and staggering, in his awk^- 
ward and ineffectual efforts to continue a hom^e, 
out of which have gone the hght and presence 
of the wife and mother. Alas for the world, if 
modern reformers should ever succeed in entail- 
ing upon the world these sorrowful conditions 
of human life as permanent states of human 
society, in which wives, under the pretense of 
securing certain rights, should drag down upon 
themselves the widow's burden, and in which 
husbands should find themselves bereft of wifely 
inspiration, and left struggling to preserve at 
home those joys and affections which the manly 
woman has thrown away for outside ambitions 



THE HUSBAND. 



6s 



and struggles. The true home must have the 
man for it and the woman in it ; must have the 
man to win, or seize from the outside world, 
things necessary for the inside world, and the 
woman to convert them into use and beauty; 
the man to create the home, the woman to bless 
and adorn it. The perfect household is the 
one where both these spheres are perfectly filled, 
and where they blend and intermingle in har- 
monious co-operation. 

The sphere of the husband, then, must ever 
remain distinct and imperative in its duties and 
responsibihties. It is the glory of the Bible 
that away back in the ages gone it recognized 
and defined these permanent relations and du- 
ties, long before the world was able to perceive 
and understand them, and that as the world 
grows wiser and purer, it only grows nearer to 
the sublime ideals of social and individual 
duties and relations as God's Word at the be- 
ginning revealed them. The world will never 
be wilhng on the one hand to give up the divine 
ideal of the relations of husbands and wives, 
nor on the other will it ever be able to tran- 
scend this ideal. The Bible, in its prescriptions 
of duty between the sexes, towers sublimely 
5 



66 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY, 

above all other books, and especially does it 
mount up in its conceptions of these relations 
between husband and wife, almost infinitely 
beyond the ideas and customs prevalent in the 
times when it was written. At once it places 
woman side by side with man, and lifting her 
from the position of a vassal, creates her the 
companion and fellow of himself, entitled to his 
esteem and love. 

The Bible imposes upon the husband the 
duty of loving, protecting, and directing. " Hus- 
bands love your wives," is the Divine command. 
As we have seen, all the circumstances of the 
original institution of this endearing relation 
were purposely framed by God to awaken in 
the mind of man the sense of this obligation to 
love and cherish the companion that God cre- 
ated for him. Adam learned the lesson, and 
God immediately added, ^'Therefore shall a 
man leave his father and mother and shall 
cleave to his wife," which is as much expressive 
of the deep and earnest affection which the 
husband should have for his wife, as it is crea- 
tive of a new and more binding- relation than 
even that of parent and child. Nor does it 
prescribe an inferior affection, but indicates the 



THE HUSBAND 



'67 



purest and most sacred form of love, as that 
which belongs to the wife. ^'Husbands love 
your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church 
and gave himself for it." What depth, and 
purity, and constancy of affection are indicated 
by such language as this! And again, "So 
ought men to love their wives as their own 
bodies ; he that loveth his wife, loveth himself 
Now no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but 
nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord 
the Church," 

This we confess is a high order of love ; it 
is, indeed, supreme, as far as earthly and tem- 
poral relations are concerned. And not only is 
it the command of God, but a moment's reflec- 
tion shows it to be eminently due to the wife. 
Man is much more dependent upon his wife 
and indebted to her than he is in the habit of 
remembering. Though he may be toiling as 
the bread-winner of the family, still for every 
thing that is really beautiful, joyful, and blessed 
at home, he and all the household are most 
indebted to her. It is she, too, that has made 
the greatest sacrifices and taken the greater 
burdens and risks in order to share hfe with 
you and build up this new home. To you the 



68 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



day of marriage is the inauguration of a new 
and richer life, is the birth of a new home ; to 
her the nuptial hour is a parting from her home, 
her parents, her brothers, her friends ; she ven- 
tures out alone with you into the pathway of 
love and duty. She cheerfully resigns all and 
risks all for your sake. Such faith and sacrifice 
demand your ever answering love. She gives 
herself to you, saying, ^^I am yours;" you ac- 
cept the sacrifice, exclaiming, "You are mine." 
There was a time when these words of her self- 
consecration to you thrilled your heart with a 
new life ; let the time never come when you will 
forget it. 

This love should be patient and forbea7ing. 
The husband should ever appreciate and sym- 
pathize with a wife's duties. Remember she 
has cares, and toils, and anxieties which it is 
impossible for you fully to understand, and as 
she bears them patiently, and for your sake 
meets them faithfully, she deserves your pa- 
tience and forbearance, and. above all, your 
tender sympathy, which is to her the greatest 
reward. Perhaps it is not given to men and 
women fully to comprehend each other, or en- 
tirely to appreciate each other's labors and bur- 



THE HUSBAND. 



69 



dens ; to do so would probably only burden each 
with the anxieties of both, while God intends 
this relation as a division and hghtening of 
human cares, instead of a means of doubling 
them. Let each, however, be fully assured that 
the other has, in the necessary duties and anxi- 
eties of life, a sufficiently heavy burden, without 
either adding aught to the load of the other. 
Though the sphere of man requires more real 
labor, more muscular toil, and, perhaps, in some 
cases more mental expenditure, we are sure 
that of the wife at home is one of greater anxi- 
ety, of more tender solicitude, of more perplex- 
ing annoyances, and of more unremitting exac- 
tions. In addition to these her life has in it 
more mysteries, more risks, and seasons when 
her whole being seems drawn upon to accom- 
phsh her peculiar and wonderful ofEce in the 
world. At such seasons especially, the wife 
deserves and needs the most loving sympathy, 
the tenderest patience and forbearance of her 
husband, and he who does not most fully and 
cordially grant them, and does not do all in his 
power to gather rest, and light, and hope about 
her is simply a brute. A wife pecuharly needs 
the approbation and commendation of her hus- 



70 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



band. Men well enough understand how much 
they, even with all their boasted strength and 
independence, are cheered and inspired by the 
approbation and smiles which they meet at 
home. Be assured the wife in her monotonous 
hfe needs them even more than you. And she 
needs them at home, too, not merely in com- 
pany. The love she requires and is entitled to 
is a love which is alive to her work and needs, 
which habitually seeks her welfare, which has 
an eye to her in all the purposes of hfe, and 
delights itself in mitigating her trials, augment- 
ing her enjoyments, and promoting her honor 
and usefulness. 

This love should be linked with respect, and 
a habitual regard to what is due to a wife's feel- 
ings and position. Man should always have a 
high respect and esteem for his wife. No one 
should ever enter into the relation under the 
advice of mere sentiment alone. Reason, con- 
science, understanding, will, should all have 
something to say, as well as the affections, 
which, at the best, are bhnd. Marriage is too 
sacred, it involves too much of obligation, it 
pledges too much either of good or evil to be 
undertaken without thought, and even most 



THE HUSBAND. 71 

serious questioning as to motive. Unhappy 
marriages are many. They desolate society, 
they corrupt pubhc morals, they disgrace relig- 
ion, but they might have been avoided in most 
instances, if not in all, had the parties to them 
paused and contemplated each other's fitness, 
had they made even a decent effort to look 
deeper than the mere surface of transient desire. 
There are many considerations on the basis of 
which men marry which perish in the using, 
and leave behind many dreary years of unhappy 
intercourse, unblessed by the hght of affection. 
If you have married one whom you can not 
esteem and habitually respect, you have made a 
sad and almost fatal mistake, and can scarcely 
expect to realize in your position the full signifi- 
cance and the full blessedness of this relation. 
Most men, however, have not made this serious 
blunder, and the habit of a profound respect 
and regard for the companion of our life is 
easily secured and maintained by cultivation, 
and be sure that the results of that cultivation 
will abundantly compensate for all effort be- 
stowed upon it. Cultivate a love for home, for 
its quiet, peaceful, pure enjoyments. Never 
think home monotonous, and if you have suf- 



72 THE RELIGION OF THE FAJIULV. 



fered it to become so. change your course, and, 
on the contrar}-. make it so attractive that the 
heart will always point that way. 

This love should be social and confiding ; one 
of the strongest bonds existing between man 
and wife is that which arises from endearing 
social intercourse and the most unquahfied 
confidence. Above all things let the husband 
who would have a happy home, see that he 
give to his wife and family a full proportion- 
ate share of his time and of his society. Let 
not business, journeyings. associations, selfish 
amusements, nor any thing else, deprive your 
family of that amount of your societv. your 
attention, and your care, which they have a 
right to demand. We have already spoken of 
the enormous exactions and consequent dangers 
of the competitions of business in the present 
day. We will not recur to this again, except to 
enter our protest against making even business 
a supreme rival against the home and family, to 
protest against the insane struggle to build the 
nest while the bird and birdlings are perishing, 
against the intoxicated strife for wealth, while 
those for whom vre seek it are fainting for some- 
thing better than food and raiment. There are 



THE HUSBAND. 



73 



Other claims to which men yield themselves 
which even more than business cut them off 
from social intercourse with their own families ; 
we mean the many associations, clubs, amuse- 
ments, etc., which occupy so many evenings 
that could be spent with infinitely greater ad- 
vantage at home. We would not ask a husband 
to debar himself from every amusement and 
enjoyment independent of his wife; his more 
active nature and employments may need recre- 
ations in which the wife could not participate ; 
we would not have him give up all his associa- 
tions, but we would have him dispense with 
every thing that lifts itself up as a rival to his 
home. His home is inexpressibly more dear 
and valuable to him than any other association, 
or any transient selfish enjoyment; it is well 
with many personal and temporary sacrifices to 
secure its permanent welfare and happiness. 
The fact is, many men do not really know how 
dear their own families are to them, until awak- 
ened to the discovery by some sudden calamity 
that has fallen upon it, leaving it broken and 
desolate, and themselves bewildered to find that 
a great hght and sweetness had suddenly gone 
out of their lives. Then they feel how utterly 



74 RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 

small all mere outside associations and all mere 
personal gratifications were in comparison with 
the simple, tender, and enduring joys of home. 

Along with this social and personal presence 
and attention at home is demanded the confi- 
dence of the husband in the value and good 
sense of his wife ; husband and wife are com- 
panions ; their consultations should be often ; 
their plans should be formed together ; they are 
equal partners in this business, and the wife's 
voice is needed as much as that of the husband. 
Husbands quite too generally make the mistake 
of appropriating to themselves alone the credit 
of having built up the home, acquired the prop- 
erty, gained the position, etc., for the family 
In the great majority of cases the wife has had 
quite as much to do with it as he has had; if 
his part of the work has been in the shop, or 
store, or office, hers has been in the house; if 
he has been toiling at one end of the line, she 
has also at the other; if he has been making 
money, she has been saving money; if he has 
been lovingly laboring to gain ease and compe- 
tence for the family, she has been just as lov- 
ingly, and as laboriously too, struggling to help 
him; she has been an inspiration to him, and 



THE HUSBAND. 



75 



for his sake she has been patient, self-sacrific- 
ing, economical, and has gladly lifted from his 
shoulders every burden that she could carry, 
that he might be more free and light for the 
race. If you have succeeded, it is a joint suc- 
cess ; if you have acquired property, it is a 
joint acquisition ; it is hers and yours. We do 
not like to hear men talk of my house, and my 
farm, etc. ; in very truth it is our house and our 
property. Women are beginning to realize and 
feel this matter-of-fact view of the case, and 
justly they may too; there is no little dissatis- 
faction in famihes growing out of this unequal 
appropriation of results on the part of the hus- 
band ; the wife feels, and rightly too, that these 
results are as much hers as his ; that she has 
also a right to their use, and especially a right 
to at least a loving consultation with regard 
both to the acquisition and the disposition of 
them. If denied this we may look for two con- 
sequences, both of which are hostile to the 
family; the first is a disposition on the part of 
the wife to demand ways by which she may 
acquire money or property which she may hold 
and use independently of her husband. Society 
is full of these demands to-day. The second 



76 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



is that the wife feels her position to be one of 
inferiority and degradation, that of a dependent, 
instead of a companion and partner. Both of 
these serious tendencies of modern times would 
be cured at once by a proper adjustment of the 
relations of husband and wife in the great 
struggle for life and the acquisition of property. 
Let husbands give full and unlimited confidence 
to their wives in every thing that pertains to 
their mutual interests, and the contest in this 
regard will be at an end. 

Headship or authority is an unquestionable 
prerogative of the husband. It is given to him 
by the appointment of God. ''Wives submit 
yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the 
Lord," is not simply apostolic advice, but is 
apostolic law. The significance of this law is 
presented in another form by the same apostle: 
"The husband is the head of the wife even as 
Christ is the head of the Church," and he thus 
defines the nature of this authority: '-Let every 
one of you so love his wife even as himself ; 
and the wife see that she reverence her hus- 
band." This authority, then, conferred by God 
on the husband, is an authority based on love. 
The husband is to exercise his authority in 



THE HUSBAND. 



77 



love, and in no other way. Like the authority 
of God, it is only to be exercised for good. 
With these limitations there can be no danger 
of rigor or severity, and every true-minded 
woman approves of this, and finds her own 
dignity and reputation dependent upon it. 

This authority belongs to man in virtue of 
his position and responsibilities. Every body 
must have a head, and every society must have 
subordination; the family with its multiplied 
duties and interests can not be exempt from 
this law. Domestic misrule and anarchy, if 
universal, would be social chaos. The respon- 
sible head of the household must be the hus- 
band. He is responsible to God and society — 
a responsibility which can not be met except 
as the controlling power. He is, hence, the 
superior, not in intellect or in character, but in 
office, in responsibility and obligation. It is 
his to account to God for the regulation of his 
house ; it is he that is to represent it in society; 
it is his to provide for it, and to give it charac- 
ter and position; it is his, then, to have au- 
thority over it. 

This authority, however, should only be 
wielded in gentleness and love ; the husband 



78 



THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



and father should avoid all harshness for trivial 
offenses. That reserved demeanor which is 
sometimes necessary in society and in contact 
with the world is out of place at home, and 
wounds the sensitive heart of an affectionate 
wife, creating coldness and distance where there 
should be warmth and trust. Each should ex- 
ercise a forbearing spirit and mutual toleration 
of each other's faihngs. Ill humor should be 
carefully suppressed, for it never makes friends, 
but is often the rock on which success, happi- 
ness, and virtue are wrecked. The presence 
of the husband, instead of casting a gloom, 
should be a light of joy to a household. 

His authority should be exercised only for 
the good of his household ; and in this view it 
is his to fix the residence, to select the busi- 
ness, to determine the style of living, and the 
measure of expenditures. True, the basis of 
all this ought to be full confidence and unre- 
strained consultation with the wife. She should 
be acquainted with the husband's resources, 
the necessities of his business, his profits and 
losses, his embarrassments, and his successes. 
She ought to be made, and very gladly will she 
become the partaker of all his joys, and the 



THE HUSBAND. 



79 



sharer of all his reverses and sorrows. The 
true secret of the successful exercise of au- 
thority at home, is to treat the wife as a rational 
being, and to let her know the reason of every 
regulation. The wife that will not then at once 
spring into sympathy with her husband's plans 
and wishes does not deserve the name of wife. 
Many a husband who has hved for years in the 
cold exercise of authority, and in the embar- 
rassment of a foolish reserve, has found an 
angel of light in his home when he has opened 
up his heart and let his wife, come in. 



VI. 



THE WIFE. 

T has not been our design hitherto 
merely to eulogize the institution of 
marriage, or to attempt to meet the 
tide of error and disaffection that is at present 
sweeping over it by throwing around it an illu- 
sive veil of fine word-painting. We claim for it 
divine authority and sanction. It is enough for 
us that God chose it and appointed it as the 
best and happiest state for man and woman in 
this life, and that all experience proves that 
God did not make a mistake. It is no more 
perfect in accomplishing its full purposes here 
than are other divine institutions that have to 
work their way in the midst of human imperfec- 
tions. Our object has been simply to indicate 
the nature and obligations of this divinely ap- 
pointed relation of men and women, to point 
out its duties, to discover, if possible, how to 
make it still more happy and still more power- 
80 




THE WIFE, 



8i 



ful for good, and especially to direct attention 
to those rocks and quicksands on which the 
happiness of so many has been wrecked, and 
to indicate the trail of that serpent which in 
our day is crawling into so many homes, filling 
the air with its poisonous breath. We shall 
not depart from this method and object in the 
present chapter. We shall not attempt to eulo- 
gize the wife, but to point out her duty, or 
rather to learn, so far as we can, the true char- 
acter, position, and work of the real wife. 

It is not about woman, as such, that we are 
now writing. With the questions of "woman's 
rights" or "woman's work" in her simple char- 
acter and relations of a woman we have just 
now nothing to do. When a woman chooses 
to become a wife she ceases to be simply a 
woman; she becomes something more; she 
has lost, and she has gained ; she has given up 
some things that pertained to her as an inde- 
pendent woman that she might gain some other 
things that she could not possess in her indi- 
vidual character. What may a woman do ? is 
one question. What is a wife ? and what may 
a wife do ? are very different ones. We would 
answer the first by saying, she may do whatever 
6 



82 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY, 



she can, whatever comes within the range of 
her capabihties, mental, moral, and physical; 
she may pursue any study for which she has 
the talents ; she may follow any business for 
which she has the capability; she may learn 
any trade for which she has the skill ; she may 
secure and exercise any office which she has 
the ingenuity to obtain; she may enter into 
competition with men in all the pursuits of hfe, 
subject only to the disabihties which nature 
has placed upon her, which no discontent can 
change, and which no legislation can modify. 
But when this same independent woman be- 
comes a wife she voluntarily assumes new rela- 
tions and new duties — relations which God has 
created, and duties which he has enjoined. If 
she insists on maintaining the prerogatives that 
belonged to her as a woman, or determines not 
to accept the obligations and duties that come 
with marriage, she ought to decline to enter 
into this relation; otherwise it is attempting to 
be a wife and not a wife at the same time. 

Wifehood is something real, positive, well- 
defined ; if you please, it is a business, a pro- 
fession, quite enough to occupy the heart, the 
head, the hands of any woman who enters into 



THE WIFE. 



83 



it ; it is hard for any one to pursue two profes- 
sions at the same time. Right here L'es the 
mistake of many; the wife, by becoming such, 
yields her individual independence ; she can 
not both give it and retain it; the wife has 
already chosen her life-work, a great and oner- 
ous life-work; she can not pursue it and also 
another at the same time ; she has already 
entered into a most important partnership, de- 
manding her time and capabilities ; she can not 
at the same time expend these capabilities out- 
side of this partnership. As a single woman 
she may choose her own life, teaching, trade, 
law, medicine, matrimony; she chooses matri- 
mony, and her life-work is before her; she 
needs no other. There is nothing gained by 
complaining that it is somewhat different with 
man; that he can choose matrimony and a 
trade, or business, or profession. The simple 
fact is that man's duty is to provide for his 
home, woman's duty is to make it ; by marry- 
ing he becomes all the more an outside worker; 
by marrying she becomes an in-door worker; 
when he marries he assumes the obligation of 
labor and business ; when she marries she no 
longer can pursue outside labor and business. 



84 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



When the necessity of outside pursuits comes 
upon the wife by calamity, or by the husband's 
idleness or neglect, surely it is not '-woman's 
right," but ^Yoman's wrong. 

Surely the duties and responsibilities of wife 
and mother are occupation enough for any 
woman, and the restless discontent now so 
prevalent in many places must arise either in 
those households where there are but few fam- 
ily cares, or where ambition or the fascinations 
of society and fashion make these duties unac- 
ceptable. And surely, too, it is hard to con- 
ceive of any higher, more important, or more 
blessed occupation than that found in the cheer- 
ful acceptance and loving discharge of these 
wifely and maternal duties. For these woman 
is pre-eminently adapted; her vocation in this 
direction is impressed on every part of her be- 
ing; here she can have no rival; here she 
reigns supreme. And yet, we repeat, it is alto- 
gether a matter of choice with her whether to 
enter into this sphere of life or to remain in the 
independence of single womanhood. We do 
not say that all women should marry, or that 
marriage is the only vocation for woman; but 
we claim that when she chooses to marry she 



THE WIFE, 



85 



voluntarily accepts the relations and duties of 
the wife, and thereafter has no right to cast 
them off, or substitute others for them, or to be 
forever complaining that they are what they are. 

But, whatever may be our human notions 
about it, marriage is what the Creator made it; 
not a perfect state, that in this life is impossi- 
ble ; not a perfectly happy state, for that we are 
not yet prepared ; not a state of ease and rest, 
it is full of employment, cares, and responsibil- 
ities. But it is the most perfect, most happy, 
most safe, and most restful mode of life for 
both men and women in our present mortal 
state ; it is the Creator's judgment of the high- 
est and best human estate. 

Christian marriage has been the great bene- 
factor of women, and it is a sad thing to find so 
many willing to speak slightingly, some even 
bitterly, of the Book that has elevated them to 
the highest position they have ever attained in 
this life, because it prescribes certain duties 
and enforces certain limitations that conflict 
with their theories. That the Bible is right 
and these so-called reformers are wrong is evi- 
dent from two very obvious facts ; first, that 
the Bible theory of marriage has been working 



86 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 

through the generations as a divine benediction 
to both men and women, purifying the former, 
h'berating, protecting, and defending the lat- 
ter, nourishing them into honor, strength, and 
beauty; secondly, that the theories of our mod- 
ern domestic reformers are producing a rapidly 
increasing harvest of discontent, social discord, 
domestic jealousy and strife, culminating in a 
fearful list of divorces, separations, infidelities, 
and murders, the theories themselves having 
already in some quarters run into wild extrav- 
agance and fanaticism. Surely the true and 
sensible women of our day are not ready for 
the subversion of our long-tried domestic rela- 
tions and institutions by the social anarchy 
which must result from the theories of certain 
restless leaders out of whom pride and ambi- 
tion have destroyed all genuine womanly feel- 
ing. The great battle against true marriage is 
fought against the duties and limitations which 
the ordinances of God throw around it, its ene- 
mies forgetting that these very restraints and 
limitations are what make it the beneficent 
institution that it is. It is exactly as these 
restraints grow less that marriage becomes less 
and less a bond of society, less an institution 



THE WIFE. 



87 



of security and happiness to both men and 
women. Remove its restraints and we de- 
w scend at once from Christian to pagan civiliza- 
tion. Nor should women forget that these 
restraints are after all more numerous in their 
application to husbands than to wives. 

Often as the story has been told, it will be 
well to look again at the character and position 
of the wife as determined by the Bible and 
Christian civilization in contrast with other 
states of society, and also with the theories of 
our modern domestic reformers. To appreciate 
this contrast more fully we must remember 
where the Bible found woman. It was not in 
Eden, where God had placed her, the compan- 
ion and helpmeet for man, for there was no 
Bible in Eden. The Bible began to be made 
about twenty-five hundred years after this, eight 
or nine hundred years after the terrible catas- 
trophe of drowning a world which had already 
become so corrupt that God could no longer 
endure it — a corruption the chief element of 
which was that men and women had already 
forgotten their true relations toward each other, 
and had polluted themselves on the face of the 
earth. The Bible, with its revelations and new 



88 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



restraints from God, broke in upon the world 
when men and women had again forgotten 
themselves and their mutual relations, and 
sensuality, and impurity, and polygam}^, and 
concubinage were almost universal; when 
Egypt and Assyria were the great empires 
of. the world, and God's laws, ordinances, and 
institutions developed themselves as great an- 
tagonisms to man's errors, and follies, and 
impurities, and crimes. 

When God began to speak to men women 
had sunk to the position of vassals, of slaves, 
or mere instruments of man's pleasure; they 
were no longer his companion, were but seldom 
admitted to his society, were not permitted to 
participate in his social or religious enjoyments. 
This condition of vassalage and inferiority is 
still perpetuated where the Bible and the lessons 
of God are not known. Throughout all heathen- 
dom even yet, man refuses to recognize woman 
as his equal or companion, excludes her from 
his society, from his business, from his rehgion. 
In Persia, in India, in China, where we find the 
highest forms of unchristian civilization, woman 
is the mere slave of labor or instrument of 
pleasure. The poor man's wife is employed to 



7'HE WIFE, 



89 



till the fields, or fish upon the waters, to bear 
burdens on the street, or is hired out at the 
husband's pleasure to labor for others. The 
rich man's wife is used to adorn his home, just 
as he would use a caged bird to sing for him, 
or hang up pictures to ornament his chamber, 
and the greater the number he can afford to 
maintain, the greater is the ornamentation. 
And what is a striking fact is, that the higher 
we ascend into the social spheres of society in 
these unchristian empires, into the wealthy, 
literary, and official grades of society, the more 
complete do we find this degradation of women. 
They are excluded from all those advantages, 
accomplishments, and enjoyments to which their 
very position would entitle them. They receive 
no education whatever; they are shut out even 
from religion itself; they are never seen in the 
temples attendant upon the worship, and if they 
have need of the offices of religion, they must 
steal away alone in the intervals of public wor- 
ship to take counsel of a priest. Even in Mo- 
hammedanism, that highest reach of paganism, 
they are excluded from participation in the rites 
and ceremonies of rehgion, and are only as- 
signed a place in Mohammed's Paradise as the 



90 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY, 



instrument of pleasure to man. Such has been 
universally the melancholy history of woman's 
destiny when left to mere human plans and 
devices. No form of civilization away from 
God's ordinances, no mere human ethics, or 
theories, or reforms have ever raised her out 
of this position of degrading inferiority. In 
society left to itself women can not and men 
will not change this unequal and unjust relation 
of the sexes. 

Here the Bible found her. At one stroke, by 
a law and institution of God found among its 
first utterances, the Bible placed her side by 
side with man, as bone of his bones, and flesh 
of his flesh, his equal and companion, the sharer 
of his joys and sorrows, the participator of his 
immortal destiny, the helpmeet for him, worthy 
of his companionship and love. God's ordi- 
nance gave her an equal destiny, embraced her 
in the counsels and provisions of his grace and 
love for the race, and made her an equal par- 
taker in the promises, hopes, and experiences 
of the Gospel. The Bible is, far above all 
human theories, the supreme constitution of 
^'Woman's Rights." Yet that same word that 
lifts her from the horrible pit, and establishes 



THE WIFE. 



91 



her feet upon a rock, and puts a new song in 
her mouth, carefully defines for her, as it does 
also for man, her true character, position, and 
work, as woman, wife, and mother. The Bible 
simply recognizes her true nature, and assigns 
to her her true work, a work for which she and 
she only is qualified by the nature and capa- 
bihties which God has given her ; that work is 
the sublime mission which is imphed in the 
motherhood of the race. It is impossible to 
conceive a grander or more important one. It 
is easy to substitute for it some glittering trifles, 
to supplant it by some specious and illusive 
fancies of other spheres and other work; it is 
easy enough to complain of some of the hard- 
ships and of the sacrifices which this mission 
imposes on women; still, we repeat it, it is 
impossible to conceive a grander or more im- 
portant work for human beings. 

The Bible leaves woman free to accept or 
decline this mission ; but having chosen to 
accept it, God's ordinance prescribes its condi- 
tions and its duties. The heavier ones he has 
made to rest on the husband. To fulfill her 
high office of wife and mother, she needs a 
home, a quiet, separate retreat, where she is 



92 



THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



chief in influence and controlling in character ; 
she needs exemption from the pressure of out- 
side cares ; she needs supplies for herself, her 
children, and her home. God has made it the 
husband's duty to provide all these for her. 
These, we claim, are pre-eminently "woman's 
rights ;" the right as wife and mother to be 
exempted as far as possible from care, and 
anxiety, and labor, other than such as belong 
to her own office and work. The unmarried 
woman may exercise all the rights, if you please 
so to call them, of self-maintenance, and may 
if she chooses enter into the strifes and strug- 
gles of business and place ; but she who con- 
sents to bear- the responsibilities and perform 
the labors of wife and mother, must be ex- 
empted from these outside demands, another 
meeting and discharging them for her. 

So God has seen it and ordained, and has 
appointed the husband as the head and pro- 
vider of the household, and the wife as the 
mother, the teacher, the maker of the home. 
As we understand it, this is the subordination, 
and the only subordination taught in the Bible. 
It is the subordination of order ; it simply ex- 
presses the necessary relation of husband and 



THE WIFE. 



93 



wife; it is an order of things necessary to 
enable each to fulfill the duties assigned to 
them separately. The place -of the husband, 
then, in God's ordinance, is that of headship, 
as the responsible representative of the family 
and provider for it ; that of the wife is entirely 
equal in character and importance in the sight 
of God, but subordinate in office. She is the 
helpmeet, a companion, a counselor, a co-worker, 
a participator in the labors, joys, sorrows, suc- 
cesses, and disappointments of the home. " Man 
is not of the woman, but the woman of the 
man;" nevertheless, "man is not without the 
woman, nor the woman without the man." It 
is impossible to express better than the apostle 
has here done that mixed state of mutual en- 
dearment and dependence, and yet of official 
subordination and order which constitutes true 
marriage. 

This true subordination implies no inferiority 
in the wife, and imparts no unjust powers to 
the husband. The submission of the wife is 
by no means a submission to wrong or oppres- 
sion, any more than the authority of a husband 
is the authority of a master and tyrant. His 
authority is measured precisely by his duties as 



94 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



a husband and father. Over the wife he has 
no other power ; apart from these relations he 
is to her only a man, she is to him only a woman. 
A wife's subordination is measured also by her 
relation of wife and mother. Her submission 
is for the good and welfare of the home. His 
authority is parental; her submission is that of 
reverence and love. He directs in order that 
he may have the ability to provide ; she obeys 
in order that she and her household may be 
provided for, and the home preserved in peace, 
and harmony, and well-being. This appoint- 
ment of God is therefore founded on the highest 
philosophy and the first principles of human 
nature. It can never become obsolete, or cease 
to be binding. The apostle again seizes the 
exact idea when he says, Husbands love your 
wives, as Christ loved the Church;" and "let 
the wife see that she reverence her husband." 
The true w^ife's submission will grow as nat- 
urally out of this loving reverence as the fruit 
grows out of the flower ; and the woman who 
marries a man without feehng for him this 
loving reverence, makes a sad mistake w^hich 
can scarcely result otherwise than in future 
sorrow, if not misery. And, by the way, the 



THE WIFE. 



95 



man that so acts in his domestic relations as to 
destroy out of his wife's heart this ideal of his 
worth and excellence that she has lovingly rev- 
erenced, has broken the vase and scattered to 
the winds the precious aroma that would have 
poured forth as incense to hallow and bless all 
his married life. 

The chief exercise of this authority of the 
husband lies in the direction of his responsibil- 
ities and duties as provider of the household. 
It is his right to regulate the home, determine 
the place of residence, fix the style of living, 
dress, etc. All these are to be regulated ac- 
cording to his means and circumstances. In 
this spirit the wife of the clerk, the mechanic, 
or laborer, should not aspire to live after the 
style of the man of wealth. The wife of the 
moderate business man should not expect to 
ape the style and equipage of the millionaire. 
The young bride just commencing with her 
husband the career of life should not aspire 
after the surroundings of the old-established 
man of business, whose capital is secured and 
whose income is ample. In all these things the 
wife should patiently, willingly, and lovingly 
submit to the circumstances and the resources 



g6 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



of her husband. The wife who complains to 
her husband because she can not go to as much 
expense as some other women, can not live in a 
house as showy, have furniture as beautiful, and 
dress as richly as her neighbor, is at once 
mean, ungenerous, and cruel. 

There is a serious fault just here in Ameri- 
can society, a fault almost peculiar to our coun- 
try, and which undoubtedly springs, not neces- 
sarily, but naturally from our leveling and 
equalizing institutions. In theory in our coun- 
try we are all free and equal, but we forget that 
in reality, in the practical circumstances of our 
life, this is not true; yet in despite of our pos- 
itive inequality in circumstances, we strain 
every nerve to produce a sort of external equal- 
ity and uniformity in our style of living, our 
dress, our habits, etc. How much evil, moral 
and social, and how much destruction of hap- 
piness and real prosperity sj^ring from this silly 
attempt it would be easy to show. Young men, 
who are quite as much to blame in this respect 
as young women, decline to enter into the mar- 
riage state, because his bride will demand a 
more costly style of living than he can provide 
for, or, which is quite as likely to be the case, 



THE WIFE. 



97 



because his own foolish pride will not allow him 
to begin life in less than the costly style of his 
employer whose fortune is made, and who is 
about ready to retire from business. The young 
girl is left unmarried, and the young man is left 
to the dangers and temptations from which a 
neat little home of his own would effectually pre- 
serve him. As a result, in many cases, a press- 
ure that drives often to misery and sometimes 
to vice, rests on unmarried girls, and hosts of 
young men yield to the temptations around 
them, and are swept away in the current of cor- 
ruption and sin. Or two young hearts marry, 
the pride of the husband determining him to 
ape a style which his income does not warrant, 
or the young, impatient wife demanding it of 
him. Then come discontent, complainings, or, 
worse still, crime on the part of either husband 
or wife. The cure for all this is simple. Let 
the young man cast away his foolish pride and 
be willing to begin life as his father began it; 
and let the young bride cheerfully and lovingly 
accept his lot and portion. Dearer by far will 
be the home that their own economy, and in- 
dustry, and patient waiting have worked up into 
a home of comfort, or luxury, if you will. 
7 



VII. 



THE WIFE.— Continued. 



OME is the kingdom of the married 
woman; here she rules in a pre-emi- 
nent sense, and as we look upon home 
as the most beautiful, attractive, and important 
place on earth, so in assigning to the great 
majority of women the beautiful and important 
office of wife and mother, or creator and pre- 
server of home, we are by no means assigning 
to them an inferior or unimportant place in the 
economy of our earthly life. Let no woman, 
then, think it an undignified position when God 
has placed this department of life and the world 
in her hands ; let her rather understand its true 
importance, and thankfully accept the duties 
which are always inseparable from places of high 
trust. She can not carry this high responsibility 
without self-denial, sacrifice, and toil. They that 
would truly reign must be willing to serve. By 
its very nature the life of a wife and mother is 

98 




THE WIFE. 



99 



one of entire unselfishness ; by its very con- 
stitution it is a life of ministry to others ; it 
approaches nearer to that voluntarily accepted 
life of our divine Savior, who came into the 
world "not to be ministered unto but to minis- 
ter," than any other human life, unless it be the 
consecrated life of the minister of the Gospel. 
It is not a strange thing, as some think it, that 
so much should be said and written of the 
duties of wives, and comparatively so little of 
that of husbands. In domestic happiness the 
wife's influence is much greater than that of the 
husband; in fact, the whole comfort of the 
household depends on her jurisdiction, and 
even the husband himself is greatly determined 
in character by the influence of the wife. It is 
an old proverb that "a man is what his wife 
will let him be," and although not entirely true, 
the proverb has truth enough in it to show the 
popular judgment as to the powerful influence 
of that woman whose life at home is like a 
prevalent spirit pervading all things in the 
house. The wife's influence is a subtile, per- 
vasive, and continuous thing; rising up, lying 
down, going out, or coming in, she is there a 
constant influence, a beloved presence. To her 



100 



THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



husband others have to gain access, she has a 
perpetual audience ; she touches all the springs 
of his life ; therefore among all the influences 
that act upon him none can be compared with 
that of his wife. A man may be good in spite 
of a foolish woman, but the chances are greatly 
against it; a man may be bad notv/ithstanding 
the presence of a discreet and excellent woman ; 
but unusual temptation or great depravity will 
be required to effect such a result. The same 
pervasive influence reaches the children of the 
home ; to them, too, the mother, not the father, 
is a constant presence molding their lives. It 
is no wonder, then, that with regard to all do- 
mestic matters the counsels and the exhorta- 
tions are given to the wife rather than to the 
husband. 

We shall, therefore, follow in the footsteps 
of many others, and even in this day, be bold 
enough to enter into some details, and profler 
our advice to wives and mothers. It is quite 
probable we shall have but little that is new to 
offer, for we confess that our ideal of the true 
wife was drawn for us several thousand years 
ago. Though the world has made great prog- 
ress in many things since the book of Proverbs 



THE WIFE. 



lOI 



was written, it has yet made no improvement 
on the perfect picture of "the virtuous woman " 
as drawn there. Carefulness, personal attract- 
iveness, kindness, economy, industry — every 
thing to make home happy, pure, comfortable, 
and beautiful are here ascribed to the woman 
whose "price is far above rubies." 

The wife has won, and the first duty is to 
hold the affection of her husband. "The heart 
of her husband doth safely trust in her." Noth- 
ing contributes more to domestic happiness 
than the possibility of this mutual trust. And 
remember that this possibility is to be learned 
after marriage ; it is to come as one of the out- 
growths of home experience ; the wife and the 
husband must both learn from, intercourse with 
each other, from the daily events and acts of 
their married life, that they can trust in each 
other. Many expect every thing from love 
itself, whereas love is only the genial soil in 
which the graces and blessings of wedded life 
are to grow. He that loves is ready to trust, 
but trust itself is based on experience. Let 
your husband learn early in your wedded life 
that you are worthy of his unhesitating trust 
and confidence. The basis of this is truth • 

7 



102 THE RELIGION OF THE FA MIL V. 



show yourself true in all tlie duties and rela- 
tions of your married life ; practice no decep- 
tions ; depend upon no illusions ; be open, can- 
did, frank, confiding ; have nothing to conceal. 
Let your husband soon learn your wisdom and 
discretion ; let him see your devotion and skill 
in managing your home and his ; be careful for 
your husband's interests ; show your disposi- 
tion to manage well the economies of the house- 
hold: let him see that you are quite as much 
concerned for the success and prosperity of the 
family as he is. 

To win this trust of the husband's heart is 
something more even than to win the affection 
of the lover: it is love's ripened fruit: it is the 
wife's seal of faithfulness and her reward. The 
true wife will make her husband's love grow 
deeper and deeper as the months go on ; the 
longer he lives with her, the more should he 
see to admire and love. 

There are some most important things for 
maintaining this attractive influence over the 
husband that some women after marriage esteem 
lightly and therefore neglect. Among these is 
that modesty and dehcacy of spirit and manners 
which is among the greatest charms of girlhood, 



THE WIFE. 



and which was probably one of the most potent 
influences in gaining the love of him who is 
now your husband. Perhaps women are inca- 
pable of appreciating fully the power of wom- 
anly modesty and delicacy over men, just as 
men can not fully understand the charm of man- 
liness over the heart of a woman. It is evi- 
dently this contrast between the sexes, which 
we can not better express than by the woman- 
liness of the one and the manliness of the 
other, which is most powerful in drawing them 
together. In the true woman man sees some- 
thing quite different from himself, and yet is 
drawn to it as something quite necessary to 
himself; he sees in her qualities which are 
weakest in him, and which yet are essential to 
a true humanity. On the other hand, the true 
woman sees a similar contrast to herself in the 
true man, and feels drawn to him for those 
qualities in which her nature is weakest. In 
her eyes he is a hero ; in his she is little less 
than an angel. This is not mere story or fiction, 
it is nature. Some strong-minded women smile 
at it in our day, and are willing themselves, and 
labor to persuade others, to cast away this 
womanliness and to ape the characteristics of 



104 ™^ RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



men. The same women would doubtless look 
with contempt upon the man who would cast 
awa}^ his manliness and ape the characteristics 
of women. There is much sneering just now 
at all that is said of this modest}^, gentleness, 
and dehcacy of womanhood, and a consequent 
danger of underestimating its value and im- 
portance in the married life. But in spite of 
all sneers, let us say to the 3^oung wife, espe- 
cially, it was by these qualities you won your 
lover, and without them you can not retain your 
husband. For a wife he wants a woman ; for 
boon companions, coarse, bold, and dashing, he 
can seek elsewhere ; and let me assure you that 
if he finds in his wife only a poor imitation of 
what he found before in his associations with 
men, the temptation will be very strong to leave 
the manly woman at home, while he seeks the 
real men elsewhere. Hold him to yourself by 
being a woman, a true, refined, delicate woman ; 
that you can be to him ; that nobody else in the 
world can be to him while you are his wife ; 
that he can not find among men; that he can 
not find among disreputable women ; that, in 
the sense in which you can manifest it to him, 
he can find in no female society, however excel- 



THE WIFE. 



lent or refined. If he finds it in you he is yours 
beyond the power of all outside attractions ; if 
he does not find it in you he is tempted to seek 
it elsewhere. 

And just here, because we can not say it so 
delicately and beautifully, we quote from an- 
other words to clothe the thought that is in' our 
mind : To a high-toned man one of the sweetest 
attractions is that undefined and indescribable 
grace which floats like a cloud of beauty round 
a true woman ; that maidenly reserve, yet that 
transparent frankness; that soul purity which 
lives and shines in every act and word, and yet 
does not know and never thinks that it is purity ; 
which can never be put on ; which is too ethereal 
for imitation; which once lost can never be 
regained; which is as far from prudishness as 
it is from immodesty; which a bad man hates 
and can not understand; which to a good man 
makes woman like an angel. This need not be 
lost in the unveiled freedom of wedded intimacy. 
The wife does indeed give all to her husband; 
but in that high and holy abandonment, not one 
grace that made up the pure beauty of her 
maiden life need be lost. No right-minded 
man would wish it otherwise ; he sees and feels 



I06 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 

its sweet power as fully as ever; nay, it has a 
deeper hold upon him now, and shines with a 
calmer, steadier radiance ; its magnetic influence 
reaches out, attracting him to her side, and all 
the more because the soul of whose beauty he 
is thus ever catching glimpses, is his alone."* 
Among these potent influences over a hus- 
band's affections is that of personal attract- 
iveness. Nature has endowed woman with a 
powerful intuition in this direction, one that is 
exceedingly liable to become excessive in its 
action, but one wdiich is in danger of becom- 
ing weak and inoperative during married life. 
Women instinctively love to be beautiful, and 
have a natural drawing toward those things 
which will add to their personal appearance 
and charms. And this is an instinct of nature, 
wise and good in itself, only to be condemned 
w4ien it becomes excessive and extravagant. 
Cleanliness of person and neatness and attract- 
iveness of dress as much belong to a true 
w^oman as the softness and delicacy of com- 
plexion and modesty of spirit which nature has 
given to her. And most men, with here and 
there a coarse exception, feel the power of this 

* Aikman. 



THE WIFE. 



107 



personal purity and neatness, and are gratified 
when they are able to provide the means for 
securmg it to their wives and children. So 
natural and so strong is the admiration of men 
for this personal attractiveness in women that 
they are just as liable to become extravagant in 
furnishing means for its gratification as women 
are in indulging it. On extravagance we shall 
have a word to say hereafter. What we wish 
to say now is that it is evident that this per- 
sonal attractiveness is one of the strong links 
between husband and wife, that it will not be 
overlooked by the true wife, and that it can be 
secured without extravagance. Indeed, a part 
of its charm in the wife is that it is not excess- 
ive, that the husband sees at once that her 
womanly taste and ingenuity has brought it 
about for his sake, without going beyond his 
income and ability. There is power in these 
little things, and a wise woman understands 
them. She knows that there is a difference in 
the feeling which a man has in meeting a wife 
in a slovenly, neglected condition, and in com- 
ing home to one whose neatness silently, but 
most eloquently, tells her husband how much 
she values his approbation, and how highly she 



I08 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



respects his love. And yet there are times and 
circumstances when the wife must be about 
other duties than those of personal adornment. 
A wife can not and need not always be in fine 
array, and the true rule is for the w^ife to study 
and manifest the spirit of order and neatness, 
and the husband to excuse impossibilities and 
necessities, while he gladly accepts the tribute 
which the wife's spirit of neatness pays to 
his love. 

Intimately connected with the personal at- 
tractiveness of the wife is the maintenance of 
moral and mental equality wnth her husband. 
Often this is not an easy problem for the wife to 
solve. Her life is necessarily a more secluded 
one than that of the husband, and is ordinarily 
more filled with cares and anxieties, the thou- 
sand little things necessary for preserving the 
order and well-being of the home demanding 
almost the constant attention and time of the 
wife. Nor are these domestic matters of much 
value in aiding in mental discipHne and culture. 
On the contrary, quite an ordinar}^, common- 
place man, by his daily intercourse with the 
w^orld, by contact with other men, by conversa- 
tion, and by the attritions of trade and business, 



THE WIFE. 



really finds quite a school for mental culture in 
his every-day life ; while the man who is already 
a scholar, and pursues a professional life, by his 
very occupation is constantly enlarging in infor- 
mation and culture. Yet these two persons, the 
active, busy man, constantly sharpening in his 
wits and enlarging in his knowledge, and the 
secluded wife, occupied with a thousand little 
cares that rather tend to mental worriment than 
mental culture, must keep within speaking dis- 
tance. We say 7nust^ for domestic happiness 
is impossible with the existence of great dis- 
parity between husband and wife. And yet 
the problem is not so difficult of solution if 
both husband and wife will set themselves 
about it. 

In the first place, nature comes to the help 
of the wife in this respect. Her nature is the 
more susceptible, and is more subject to the 
law of assimilation than that of the husband; 
the wife grows as he grows, and in comparative 
development she is generally found side by side 
with him ; she goes up in society as he goes, 
and is generally found as ready to grace any 
position in which his success places her as he 
is himself. This has come about through their 



no THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



mutual intercourse, through their conversation, 
through their consultations on plans and pur- 
poses, through that beautiful and powerful law 
of assimilation by which persons, and especially 
persons of opposite sex, grow into likeness of 
character, and often even of person. The hus- 
band that would have his wdfe a good compaii- 
ion for himself must give enough of himself to 
her to bring about this assimilation; he must 
be with her, converse w^ith her, talk of their 
plans and aims together, treat her as a partner 
in his life and purposes, and he will find she is 
growing as fast as himself If he would have a 
genial companion in his wife, he must, as far as 
possible, secure to her the time and^ means for 
mental culture; he must raise from her, as 
much as possible, the burden of care and toil; 
he must bring into the house books, papers, 
pictures, and many other things that both make 
the home more beautiful and all who live in it 
more cultured. 

But the wife, too, must see the importance 
of this equality with her husband, and must 
determine to attain it and maintain it. She 
must insist upon devoting a part of her time to 
this direct end, mental improvement. A wife 



THE WIFE. 



Ill 



needs not be a blue-stocking; they are not usu- 
ally the wives in whom men are very happy; 
literature is a calling; it is all right for women 
who have the call to pursue it, but it is no more 
every wife's duty to be a litterateur than it is for 
every husband to pursue a learned profession. 
But what every true wife ought to aim at is to 
have her mind fairly cultivated, abreast with 
the knowledge of the day, and active enough to 
meet responsively the approaches of another 
active and intelligent mind. It is astonishing 
how much reading, not merely of novels and fic- 
tion, full of nonsense and emptiness, but good, 
useful, solid reading, can be accomplished by a 
very busy housewife and a faithful mother with 
many little ones around her. Have a good 
book always at hand, and you will be surprised 
to find how many opportunities present them- 
selves in spare moments to read it, and will be 
still more surprised to find at the end of a 
year how much you have read, and what men- 
tal strength and elasticity you have acquired. 
And in this day the wife finds a great friend 
and helper in the daily paper, and in the really 
valuable periodicals into which so much knowl- 
edge is condensed into a small space. Those 



112 THE RE LI GI OX OF THE FA MIL \ ". 

were beautiful and true words of r\Iadame de 
!Maintenon to the Princess of Savoy on the eve 
of her marriage: "Xeglect not to make your 
mind a fit companion for him whose companion 
you are to be through hfe. Personal charms 
may please for a mom.ent, but the more last- 
ing beauties of an improved understanding can 
never tire. We are soon weary of looking at a 
picture, though executed in a masterly style, 
and she who has only beauty to recommend 
her has but httle chance of n^eeting a lover 
who will not grow indifferent to a mere portrait, 
particularly when its colors are faded by the 
subduing hand of time. Then it is that mod- 
esty and sweetness of temper are particularly 
observed, and the loss of beauty will not be re- 
gretted by the man it first made your captive.'' 
It is impossible to meet the responsibilities 
of wifehood without industry and economy. 
The true wife •'•Tooketh well to the ways of her 
household, and eateth not the bread of idle- 
ness."' If it is the husband's duty to provide 
for his household, it is as much the wife's duty 
to use his resources with economy and pru- 
dence. If she is under no obligation to econo- 
mize at home, he is under no obligation to be 



THE IVIFE/ 113 

diligent abroad. If she may be wasteful and 
extravagant in the family, he may be idle and 
reckless in business. Nor is mere economy 
and prudence the measure of a wife's duty here. 
The true wife can not be an idle woman. God 
made both men and women to work; and this 
is not a curse for sin, but is a duty devolved 
upon them while they were yet in the innocence 
of Eden. Well would it be for many sickly, 
nervous, fretful wives, if they had something to 
do, and were under the necessity of doing it. 
We have a serious fault in American society in 
this respect. How strange it is that in this 
land where the highest honor is placed on labor, 
and he is the true man who raises himself and 
builds his own fortune, labor on the part of 
women should be considered degrading, and 
especially that kind of labor which is peculiarly 
in the province of women, the care of the 
home ! Even where the mother, born before 
these new notions became prevalent, and true 
to the traditions of her youth, condescends to 
labor occasionally, the daughters are frequently 
brought up in perfect idleness, take no bodily 
exercise except that of walking in fine weather, 
or riding in cushioned carriages. Domestic 
8 



114 ™^ RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



industry is too much out of fashion among 
modern wives — too much for real domestic hap- 
piness and comfort, too much for health of mind 
and body. Those who can afford servants can 
not bemean themselves, as they think, by do- 
mestic labors. The result is, too frequently, 
that ladies of this class lose what little health 
they started life with, becoming feeble in just 
about the same proportion as they become fash- 
ionable. 

In this neglect of household cares American 
ladies stand alone. A German lady, no matter 
how elevated her rank, never forgets that do- 
mestic labors conduce to the health of mind 
and body ahke. An English lady, whatever 
maybe her position in societ}^, does not neglect 
the affairs of her household, and even though 
she has a housekeeper, devotes a portion of her 
time to this, which she considers her impera- 
tive wifely duty. The queen herself is one of 
the most careful housewives and industrious 
women of her realm. A contrary course to 
this results in that lassitude and ennui of mind, 
and languor of body which is fatal to domestic 
cheerfulness and happiness ; the wife either 
withers aw^ay in ill health, or rushes into all 



THE WIFE. 



sorts of fashionable follies to find employment 
for her mind. Home employment, too, is the 
most effectual antidote to those besetting sins 
of backbiting, enviousness, and gossiping. Yet, 
wherever it is practicable, the husband will find 
it greatly to his interest and happiness, not to 
allow these household cares to multiply upon 
his wife until they become a drudgery, and she 
that should be his companion becomes merely 
his housekeeper. Give her timely help and re- 
lief; lift the burden the moment you see it 
bearing too heavily on mind or body; just as 
soon as your means will admit of it — and that 
will be long before you have accumulated what 
you would call your fortune — let her office and 
work be that of superintendent of home, as 
yours is that of superintendent of your busi- 
ness. You will be paid for all this in what is 
better than money, roseate health, cheerful spir- 
its, a happy and lovable wife. 

We must insist on the old-fashioned claim, 
that it is the wife's duty to be good-natured at 
home. It may be exceedingly difficult to main- 
tain this at all times, but it is essential; the 
absence of it is fatal to the peace and happiness 
of the family; it is the vital breath of the house- 



1 1 6 THE RELIGION OF THE FA MIL Y. 

hold. To achieve it rests mainly on the wife, 
because the home is peculiarly hers. So Solo- 
mon describes an ideal wife : She openeth 
her mouth with wisdom, and in her tongue is 
the law of kindness." No trait of character is 
more valuable in a wife than this : it is like the 
flowers that spring up in our pathway, reviving 
and cheering us. Let a man go home at night, 
wearied and worn out by the toils of the day, 
and how soothing is a word dictated by a sweet 
disposition! It is as sunshine shining on his 
heart. He is happy and the cares of life are 
forgotten. A svreet temper has a soothing in- 
fluence over the mind of the whole family. 
When it is found in the wife and mother, you 
find kindness and love predominating over the 
natural feelings of all in the house. Smiles, 
kind words and looks characterize the children, 
and peace and love have their dwelling in that 
home. Few women are aw^are of the powerful 
influence of their words of gentleness, kindness, 
and encouragement over men. In many points 
these great, strong men are weaker than you; 
they have less patience, less endurance than 
you; they are more easily discouraged than 
you. Your smile and approbation, your gentle 



7'HE WIFE. 



117 



words and encouragement come to them like an 
inspiration. When your husband goes forth to 
the toils of the day, your smile and blessing are 
a far better stimulant than any bar-room or 
saloon can furnish him; and when he returns 
from the cares of the world, let him find repose 
and affection at home, and in its genial sunshine 
he will forget the storm without. Above all, a 
wife should be exceedingly careful in minister- 
ing blame and complaints with regard to his 
business, and murmurings that he is not more 
successful. Most likely he is doing the very 
best he can ; man's ambition to succeed is in- 
tense enough without any goading from his 
v/ife. His failures, his want of success, his 
embarrassments, his limited circumstances are 
stinging enough to him, and should never re- 
ceive upbraidings from his wife. 

But we must conclude this article with a 
glance at the wife in her relation of mother. 
Here she stands pre-eminent in her power to 
impress her own character, whether good or 
evil, on her children, and througli them on so- 
ciety at large. Nor is this all ; these little ones, 
like living links, connect her with the distant 
future, and through tliem, as tlirough electric 



Il8 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY, 



wires fastened to her heart and it the hving 
battery, she may send her influence like a hving 
stream far into the future. How powerful, 
then, is the influence of the mother! How 
deep, how early, how enduring her impressions 
on the youthful mind ! What nobler or more 
important province of activity could possibly 
fall to the lot of human beings ? Shame, shame 
on those women who, in their mad seeking after 
meaner things, would cast from them this sub- 
lime office and work! It is the mother's power 
not only to bless the little ones at her feet, so 
that they arise and call her blessed, but the 
future men and women, husbands and wives, 
fathers and mothers of the world, first nestle in 
her bosom, and play around her feet, while she 
in every look, in every utterance, in every les- 
son, molds their character, and daguerreotypes 
upon them impressions which will last forever. 
This is not fancy, nor is it exaggeration. The 
mother re-lives in the heart and life of her chil- 
dren. Cowper lost his mother in early life, 
when yet a little feeble inmate of the nursery, 
and yet that mother's image, her voice, her kind- 
ness, her lessons, were enstamped on his soul. 
Long years passed by, and Cowper grew to be 



THE WIFE, 



119 



a man; in the full strength of his genius and 
manhood, hear his address to his spirit-mother. 
The whole of it is one of the most beautiful 
productions in the English language ; we can 
quote only that part of it which bears on the 
point before us : 

"Where once we dwelt our name is heard no more ; 
Children not thine have trod the nursery floor ; 
And where the gardener, Robin, day by day, 
Drew me to school along the public way, 
Delighted with my bauble coach, and wrapp'd 
In scarlet mantle warm, and velvet cap, 
'T is now become a history little known, 
That once we called the pastoral house our own. 
Short-lived possession ! but the record fair, 
That memory keeps of all thy kindness there, 
Still outlives many a storm that has effaced 
A thousand other themes less deeply traced — 
Thy nightly visits to my chamber made, 
That thou might' st know me safe and warmly laid ; 
Thy morning bounties ere I left my home, 
The biscuit or confectionery plum ; 
The fragrant waters on my cheek bestowed 
By thine own hand, till fresh they shone and glowed ; 
All this, and more endearing still than all, 
Thy constant flow of love that knew no fall. 

All this, still legible in memory's page, 
And still to be so till my latest age. 
Adds joy to duty, makes me glad to pay 
Such honors to thee, as my numbers may." 

Nor is it only these memories that live in 
the growing heart of childhood. Pious lessons, 
elements of truth, principles of rehgion and 



I20 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



moralit}^, are all like seeds sown in a fertile 
soil, which must and will germinate and grow 
in the future. The devout Richard Cecil thus 
records his experience: ''Nothing used to im- 
press upon my mind so strongly the reality and 
excellence of religion as my mother's counsels 
and pra3xrs. Frequently she retired with her 
children to a private room, and, after she had 
read the Bible with us and given us some good 
instruction and advice, she kneeled down with 
us and offered a prayer, which, for apparent 
earnestness and fervor, I have seldom known 
equaled. These seasons were always pleasant 
to us, and sometimes we looked forward to 
them with impatience. My mother seemed to 
me then almost an angel, her language, her 
manner, the very expression of her counte- 
nance indicating great nearness to the throne 
of grace. I could not have shown levity at 
such times ; it would have been impossible. I 
felt then it was a great blessing to have a pray- 
ing mother, and I have felt it much more sensi- 
bly since. Those prayers and counsels time 
will never efface from my memor}^ They form, 
as it were, a part of my very constitution.'' 
Here, then, is a vast sphere of usefulness 



THE WIFE. 



121 



and activity for the Christian wife and mother, 
and, though the husband and father is to be 
her helpmeet here, and may not transfer his 
parental responsibility and duty to the wife, 
but should ever co-operate with her in this 
momentous work, yet her position here is 
supreme, and it is pre-eminently her work to 
train her children in the nurture and admoni- 
tion of the Lord. 



VIII. 



PARENTS. 



SAD and portentous phenomenon has 
presented itself in our day which we 
can scarcely designate by any other 
title than a revolt against childhood ; perhaps 
it would not be badly named as a protest against 
the Creator. How strange that this abomina- 
tion should originate in Christendom ! With the 
ancient Jew children wxre esteemed "a heritage 
from the Lord;" with pagans they are counted 
among their greatest treasures ; the saddest 
calamity of their life is to be childless. True, 
sometimes they will cast them into some sacred 
river, or immolate them on some idol shrine, 
but this is not because they hate them, or wish 
to be rid of them, but because they would de- 
vote them as their choicest gifts to their gods. 
It remained for Christian civilization to bring 
forth this deliberate protest against mother- 
hood, this cool determination to thwart the 

122 




PARENTS, 



123 



purposes and arrangements of the Creator, this 
insane outcry against the cares and responsi- 
bihties of parenthood. Though born in Chris- 
tendom, it surely is not of Christianity. It is 
an offspring of that common and wide-spread 
revolt against the ordinances of God which 
would wholly set aside Christianity and the 
Bible, which would reduce marriage itself to 
mere licensed sensuality, and which finds in the 
wholesome restraints of God's ordinances and 
institutions hateful barriers in the way of its 
unhmited licentiousness. The Divine founder 
of Christianit}^ set to his seal of imperishable 
protest against the abominable spirit when he 
called the little children to himself and blessed 
them, and claimed them for his kingdom on 
earth and in heaven. 

We do not design here to enter into a dis- 
cussion of this modern abomination, but only to 
introduce what we have to say on the parental 
relation and its obligations, with a protest against 
the fearful evil, and to say to those who read 
these pages, turn away from it as you would 
from a visible manifestation of Satan himself. 
Depend upon it, it is only fraught with evil ; 
the displeasure of God is upon it, and his curse 



124 



THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



will rest on that family where the abominations 
it leads to are practiced. If it is not the spirit 
of murder, it is so near to it that no man or 
woman can honestly draw^ the line of distinc- 
tion; and so near does it lie to the domain of 
positive crime, that the shadow of God's penal- 
ties for sin falls upon it, and produces blighting 
and a curse wherever it is found. If you do 
not wish the cares and responsibilities of a 
parent, do not marry; but woe be to that hus- 
band and wife who try the experiment of snatch- 
ing from Nature the sweets of one of her most 
beautiful institutions while crushing beneath 
their feet its proper fruits ! Nature wdll take 
her revenge most fearfully on soul and body, 
and the God of nature wdll make his displeasure 
felt in that home. 

We know there are great cares and responsi- 
bilities connected wdth the parental relation ; 
we know that these cares fall wdth special 
weight on the mother ; we know that in order 
to meet them she, especially, must make many 
sacrifices and self-denials ; we know that the 
childless w^ife can live a more easy, gay, fashion- 
able life ; and 3Xt \ve know the invariable order 
of God that responsibilities w^ell met, and duties 



PARENTS, 



125 



faithfully performed, and cares patiently borne, 
bring the highest blessings and joys we can 
receive in this life; we know that the blessed- 
ness of that mother who, even at the cost of 
her own self-sacrifices, has reared sons and 
daughters for God and for humanity, infinitely 
transcends all the mere pleasure that may be 
crowded into an eas}^, frivolous, fashionable life, 
and that in doing so she has filled as high and 
holy an office and service as falls to the lot of 
mortals here below. 

But why should we look on the parental rela- 
tion as a burden, and see in the sacred duties 
which it involves only a grievous weight of 
responsibility? Is it not one of the sublimest 
mysteries of our human life? Is not the rela- 
tion one of the most pure, and dear, and holy 
on earth? Are not the opportunities which it 
furnishes for impressing ourselves on other 
beings, for molding and training them for honor 
and virtue, among the grandest opportunities 
of our life ? Is it not a delightful work to be 
permitted to train these young immortal plants 
for a place in the garden of the Lord ? — to 
polish these living gems to be set in the diadem 
of the Redeemer? Surely it is a beautiful, 



126 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



rather than a burdensome arrangement, that 
these young, expanding, priceless, and impress- 
ible minds are committed to our chaj-ge, and 
that to us has been given the sublime work of 
educating and developing them for immortality 
and a glorious life. How the thought ennobles 
the parental relation ! What sanctity and sig- 
nificance does it impart to the Christian family ! 
How do these immortal offshoots from our 
own existence rise in our estimation of their 
worth, and grow in the depth and earnestness 
of our love, while even in their beautiful and 
helpless childhood they present themselves to 
us as beings whose interests and destinies are 
worthy of our life's devotion ! A young immortal 
plays around our feet — a budding moral being 
blooms in our household; such is its relation 
to us, and such its nature, and such the means 
which our merciful Father has provided for our 
use, that we may direct its opening life, unfold 
its budding being, and lead each expanding 
faculty toward God and heaven. We ma}" stamp 
divine things on its young heart; we may write 
lessons of heavenly wisdom on its opening mind ; 
we may intermingle streams of sacred influences 
with the current of its flowing life ; we may make 



PARENTS. 



127 



impressions upon its expanding nature that shall 
endure forever. Say, are not such powers as 
these gracious gifts, rather than burdensome 
obligations ? — such a labor as this, a beautiful 
privilege, rather than an onerous task? Should 
we not gladly turn to it as a delightful life-labor, 
rather than strive to evade it as a grievous life- 
burden ? 

In the light of such thoughts we purpose to 
study some of the duties and responsibilities of 
parents. And, first, let us call attention to 
the parent's responsibility for the irresponsible 
child. 

The child itself, during the age of immaturity, 
is obviously irresponsible ; its circumstances 
forbid that it should be held accountable for its 
thoughts and actions ; and yet it is a moral 
being. Its irresponsibility is far different from 
that of a mere animal, because its nature and 
its actions are far different from those of a mere 
animal. Young and ignorant as it is, it is still a 
moral and immortal being — moral because there 
is in its nature the germ of a moral character, 
which must necessarily be developed in the 
future, and immortal because it is moral. Its 
relations to the future, as a moral being in em- 



12 8 THE RELIGION OF THE FA MIL K 

bryo. are vast and important. If it live, it must 
grow up into the responsible and accountable 
man — must, by the necessity of its nature and 
by the circumstances of its life, enter upon a 
probationary state which involves its immortal 
destiny. Yet the child is unconscious of its 
own moral nature, and ignorant of all these 
responsibilities and relations in the future, and 
is itself incapacitated for making preparations 
for entering upon that fearful stage of probation. 
Not so. however, with the parents. They are 
aware of the moral and immortal nature of the 
child, and see the important relations which it 
bears to the future, and they are capacitated 
to train and fit that young immortal for entering 
most advantageously upon its future probation. 

It can not be otherwise, than that, during 
the irresponsibility and ignorance of the child, 
the parents are held responsible for the knowl- 
edge which they thus possess, and accountable 
for the culture of the child, they being alone 
competent to bring it up under the most favor- 
able circumstances to enter upon its own re- 
sponsibility. What parent does not feel that 
he is the guardian and protector of \\\^ physical 
life of his child? that during its early exist- 



PARENTS. 



129 



ence, while ignorant of the nature of things 
about it, of the laws of its own life, of the 
injurious and morbid influences by which it is 
surrounded, of the means of avoiding dangers, 
escaping diseases, preserving health and pro- 
longing life, his knowledge of all these circum- 
stances is to be made available to the thought- 
less and ignorant child, and that on him devolves 
the duty of securing to his helpless offspring 
those circumstances which give the greatest 
promise of j^reserving its health and prolonging 
its life ? And is it not equally obvious that the 
jDarent is constituted the guardian and protector 
of the moral nature of his offspring? During 
its early existence — its age of imbecility a^nd 
ignorance — must not his knowledge of the child^s 
moral nature, of its future relations and respon- 
sibilities, of the laws of its moral life, and of the 
moral dangers and diseases which threaten it, 
be made available to the child, and must not he 
preserve it from all dangerous exposure, and 
from all morbid influences, and secure for it the 
most favorable circumstances for the unfolding 
and strengthening of its moral life ? 

A very erroneous conception of the nature 
of childhood and of parental responsibility, is 
9 



130 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



that which compares the child to the rough 
marble in the quarry, which may or may not be 
chiseled into forms of beauty. The analogy 
holds good in only a single point. The artist 
may bring forth the rough block from the quarry, 
and his chisel may reveal what forms of beauty 
the marble may be made to assume; and so 
may moral and intellectual culture develop the 
innate capacities of childhood, and reveal to 
us the beautiful moral and intellectual forms 
the growing child may be made to assume. 
But in all things else how poor the compari- 
son — how faint the analogy! In the one case 
we have an aggregation of particles, crystallized 
into shape, without organism, life, or motion. 
In the other we have life, growth, expansion. 
In the first, we have a mass of Hmestone, neither 
more nor less than insensate matter, utterly 
incapable of any alteration from within itself. 
In the second, we have a living body, a mind, 
affections instinct with power, gifted with vital- 
ity, and forming the attributes of a being allied 
to and only a little lower than the angels. 
These constitute a life which, by its inherent 
force, must grow and unfold itself by a law of 
its own, whether you educate it or not. Some 



PARENTS. 



development it will inake., some form it will 
assume., by its own irrepressible and sponta- 
neous action. The question, with us, is rather 
what that form shall be ; whether it shall wear 
the visible robes of an immortal, with a coun- 
tenance glowing with the intelligence and pure 
aifection of cherub and seraph, or, through the 
rags and sensual impress of an earthly life, 
send forth only occasional gleams of its higher 
nature. The great work of all education, moral 
and intellectual, is to stimulate and direct this 
native power of moral and intellectual growth. 
God and the subject co-working effect all the 
rest. 

But let us look again at the very intimate 
physical and moral relation which God has 
established between the parent and child. It 
is an axiom among us that the child must par- 
take of the nature of its parents both physically 
and morally. We expect to find .he lineaments 
of the parents impressed upon their offspring, 
and the child partaking of the constitution of 
its parents. We even cast the chances of its 
life and health on the constitution of those who 
gave it being. Vigorous and healthful parents 
generally have vigorous and healthful children ; 



132 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



the insane, the epileptic, the consumptive par- 
ent impresses strong tendencies to the same 
evils on the constitution of his offspring; the 
drunken and licentious father, whose debauches 
ruin his own constitution, entails a ruined con- 
stitution upon his child. Nor is the moral re- 
lation between parents and children less strik- 
ing than the physical. The parent who neglects 
his duty to God, and gives himself up to wick- 
edness — who develops, by indulgence and prac- 
tice, the corrupt passions and appetites of his 
nature, and especially who gives himself over 
to the graver vices, must expect to stamp a 
corresponding character upon his offspring; 
and that not only by the influence of his exam- 
ple, but by the transmission of the tendencies 
of his own moral character to the child. The 
drunken and licentious parent will be very 
likely to have drunken and licentious children; 
and that for two very powerful reasons — he will 
certainly entail upon them a strong bent of the 
nature toward those vices, which will prove 
sources of temptation to them through their 
whole life, and the influence of his example on 
natures already bent toward his own vices, con- 
stitutes a temptation of which there is but little 



PARENTS. 



hope of successful resistance. On the other 
hand, the pious, temperate, and God-fearing 
parent transmits to his offspring the better 
tendencies of his own moral character. That 
"a good tree can not bring forth evil fruit, 
neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit," 
and "of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of 
a bramble-bush gather they grapes," are axio- 
matic principles as true here as in other spheres 
of morals. 

But God has shown us this intimate connec- 
tion on a scale of fearful magnitude, in the 
moral corruption of an entire race from the 
moral corruption of apostate parents. The 
question is often asked why the corruption and 
mortality of Adam are made to fall upon us, 
who had personally no part in his transgression ? 
The answer is found in this simple principle : 
It could not be otherwise and we be his chil- 
dren. By the laws of life he must entail his 
own nature on his children, and this, as far as 
we can see, could only have been averted by 
such a modification in the laws of life as would 
have destroyed any such relation as that of 
parent and child. 

Who, then, does not see the great weight of 



134 RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



responsibility that is thus stamped upon the 
parents of the child ? God, by the laws of life, 
by the nature of childhood, and by its relations 
to the future, has almost wholly left it with the 
parents to say in what state, and with what 
advantages or disadvantages, the child shall 
grow up and enter upon its own responsibility 
and probation. We see thus to what a vast 
extent God has suspended the physical and 
temporal, and the moral and eternal interests 
of the irresponsible child on the responsible 
parent; and we learn, too, what he means, as 
well as the truth of the declaration, when he 
declares he will visit the iniquities of the fathers 
upon the children, to the third and fourth gen- 
eration. 

We thus have contemplated the responsibil- 
ity of the parents for the child as a preliminary 
consideration enforcing the duties of parents. 
Parents have duties, imperative and unavoida- 
ble, because they are the responsible represent- 
atives of the child. And here, too, we may 
properly recall to mind as a second preliminary 
consideration, the nature and relations of the 
child as presented in the Word of God. It is 
a moral and immortal being w^hich God has 



PARENTS, 



^35 



embraced in the great atonement of his Son, 
and whom he has morally and legally qualified 
for admission into his Church and kingdom; as 
such he has placed it in the hands of its par- 
ents, holding them responsible for the care and 
culture of one of his lambs, and accountable 
for their dealings with one of his children. 
There is a twofold and fearful responsibility 
resting upon parents, and they can not evade 
it — a responsibility which involves them in 
stamping the very character of their children, 
and a responsibility which makes them the 
keepers of young immortal members of the 
kingdom of Christ. What folly, then, to sup- 
pose that responsibilities like these, interwoven 
into the very texture of our lives, and springing 
up from the very moral being of our children, 
can be thrown aside and evaded! 
But to the duties : 

I . // is the duty of parents to consecrate the7n- 
selves to the service of God, 

From what we have already seen, obviously 
the highest interests of our children can only 
be reached by parents themselves becoming 
the servants of God. Children are only born 
under the most favorable circumstances when 



136 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 

they are born of Christian parents ; their very 
moral nature, at least in its tendencies, is the 
better of it, and the holy, God-fearino; father, 
and the pious, meek, and devoted mother, stamp 
their character on their offspring and- send them 
forth into the world freed from a hundred evil 
influences which they would inherit from un- 
godly, worldly, and wicked parents. 

But, let our opinions be as they may with 
reference to what we have just advanced, cer- 
tainly we will all agree that the highest moral 
interests of the child can only be met in the 
religious example and godly ^Drecepts of pious 
parents. Thrice blessed is that child who is 
born of sincere Christian parents, and who is 
reared under the preserving and refining influ- 
ences of godly precepts and examples. Un- 
happy indeed is that child who is born of wicked 
and ungodly parents, or even of heartless and 
godless worldlings, and who is destined to be 
reared under the influence of vice and wicked- 
ness, or to grow up in the tainted atmosphere 
of pride and worldliness. Both are alike moral 
and immortal beings, and whether breathing 
the pure air of a heavenly household, or living 
in the polluted atmosphere of vice, or the no 



PARENTS. 



less hazardous influences of parental, pride and 
heartlessness, all alike must grow up into ma- 
turity to enter upon a stage of personal respon- 
sibility and individual probation. But how 
differently will these young immortals, born and 
reared under such different circumstances, enter 
upon this important stage of life ! The child 
of godly parents enters upon it under the most 
favorable circumstances — with a nature softened 
and subdued, and already more than half Chris- 
tianized by holy examples exhibited in the lives 
of those most endeared to it, and a mind relig- 
iously cultivated and thoroughly imbued with 
the principles of godliness, a memory stored 
with Gospel truth, a judgment disciplined in 
right and wrong, a conscience educated and 
Christianized, it is ready — thoroughly fur- 
nished — to emerge from childhood into man- 
hood — to pass out of the state of irresponsible 
youth into that of a great moral and accounta- 
ble being. 

Not so with children of wicked and worldly 
parents. Deprived of the influence of godly 
precept and example, and positively tainted by 
the influence of constant exhibitions of vice 
and worldliness ; with natures untamed and un- 



138 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



disciplined: minds ignorant of Christian truth; 
judgments warped and obscured; consciences 
seared and callous; principles and habits of 
vice and worldliness already formed and con- 
firmed; what fitness is there in such beings to 
enter upon the fearful stage of life through 
which they must pass ? 

How justly may we conclude, then, that the 
first great duty of parents toward the child is 
personal consecration to God ! And what an 
appeal should these considerations make to the 
heart of the parents ! If reckless of their own 
interests — if indifferent about their own salva- 
tion — if willing to hazard their own eternal in- 
terests for a life of sin, and pleasure, and world- 
liness, let them remember that they are involving 
others in their ruin, and are sacrificing on the 
altar of their own pleasure and gratification the 
immortal interests of those most dear to them. 
If they proudly assert themselves to have the 
right to hazard their own salvation, let them 
stop to ask whether they ha\^ also the right to 
imperil the salvation of those immortal buds to 
whom they have given life. Let every parent 
remember that God has so constituted it, and 
by no possibility can he evade it, that in deter- 



PARENTS. 



mining the course of life which he will pursue, 
the interests of others besides himself are vastly 
involved in his decisions, and if he is prepared 
to risk and sacrifice his own immortal interests, 
he must also answer the question whether he 
is prepared and has the right to sacrifice theirs. 

2. // is the duty of parents to consecrate their 
children to God. 

When the eye of the parent glances with 
tenderness upon his offspring, and his thought 
runs forward into the future of his child, with 
what complacency does he mingle with the 
hopes of that future, the provisions which Di- 
vine love has made for his children ! and when 
death enters the loved circle of his household 
and removes a lamb from the flock, what thought 
so consoling to the stricken heart, as the truth 
that a glorious provision has been made for the 
immortality of his child ! But shall we build 
upon these Gospel provisions our hopes and 
exultations, and draw from them in the hour 
of bereavement and sorrow our sweetest con- 
solation, and yet fail to recognize the prac- 
tical duty which devolves upon us, and which 
springs from these merciful provisions ? Pro- 
visions of such magnitude made for our chil- 



I40 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



dren involve duties of the highest importance. 
The promise being made to us and to our chil- 
dren, is not merely a benevolent extension of 
the Gospel provision to gratify the parental 
emotions of our hearts, but to constitute the 
basis of a grave parental duty. If God has 
opened the door of his Church for their recep- 
tion, it is not that parents may admire his far- 
reaching mercy, but that they may bring them 
in. If the Savior has opened his arms, and 
commanded his disciples to suffer the little 
ones to come unto him, it was not merely to 
give us an exhibition of his tender sympathy, 
but that he might lay upon us the obligation of 
bringing them to Christ. And if a full and 
free salvation has been provided for them by 
linking them in a vital union with the dying 
Lamb of God, it is not simply to relieve the 
sorrows of the bereaved hearts of parents, but 
to inspire in them a realization of the true nat- 
ure and worth of childhood, and to lay upon 
parents the dut}^ of connecting them with the 
visible kingdom of heaven on earth, as em- 
blematical of their title to the kingdom of 
heaven on high. 

With such provisions made for the earthly 



PARENTS. 



141 



and the heavenly welfare of our children, with 
what thankfulness should we avail ourselves of 
them, and how gladly should we bring them to 
the arms of Christ and consecrate them to him ! 
Few sights to us are more beautiful than the 
devout and conscientious consecration of chil- 
dren to God in the impressive ordinance of 
baptism, when in the parents' minds it is not a 
mere unmeaning ceremony, but is a giving of 
the child to God and a covenanting on their 
part to bring it up in the nurture and admoni- 
tion of the Lord. 

3. // is the duty of parents to give to their 
children the most careful moral culture a7td dis- 
cipline. 

The consecration of children to God in the 
beautiful act of baptism implies this subsequent 
religious culture and discipline. But parent- 
hood itself imphes it, and it can not be evaded, 
as some very silly people think, by refusing to 
consecrate their children to Christ. You are a 
parent ; that settles all ; therefore it is your duty 
to give the most careful religious culture to your 
children. You have been the means of brinmnof 
young immortal beings into life ; therefore it is 
your duty to train them for God and eternity. 



142 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



Into the details of the mode of this moral 
training we can not enter here. We shall only 
indicate some of the prominent features of such 
a course. 

I. And first of all, let parents first learn to 
show piety at ho77ier If our Savior has wisely 
given us an injunction ^'to let our light shine 
before men, that they seeing our good works 
may glorify our Father which is in heaven,''^ 
with how much additional force and promise of 
success will it apply to the wants and interests 
of our households ! In the language of one 
who in his brief life did much for the develop- 
ment of domestic piety, and who, as men would 
sa}^, died too soon, "Be deeply pious yourself — 
let your own soul be thoroughly imbued with 
the spirit of the Gospel. Then will you present 
a living image of the beauty and excellence of 
Christianity before your children. Then will 
you be inflexibly just in your dealings, upright 
in conversation, humane toward the suffering, 
and walk humbly with God. Then will you 
be solemn and dignified, cheerful and court- 
eous. Then w^ill the law of kindness be on 
your tongue — meekness and modesty will adorn 
your demeanor — ^joy will light up your conn- 



PARENTS. 



tenance — peace and heavenly tranquillity will 
sit undisturbed upon your brow. Your relig- 
ion will be heard in the tones of your voice, 
seen in every feature of your face, blended with 
all your acts. Then will you act under a lively 
impression of the presence of a holy God, and 
your reproofs, corrections, warnings, counsels, 
and expostulations, will, by their very manner^ 
make your children feel that God is near. Then 
will you be faithful in the duties of family relig- 
ion. Your warm and overflowing gratitude, 
your child-like confidence, your earnest entreat- 
ies, your heart-felt adoration in family prayer, 
will make such an impression on the minds of 
your children of God's being and presence, of 
his goodness and mercy, of his adorable per- 
fections, and of the reality of his manifesting 
himself to his children 'as he does not to the 
world,' as is unlikely to be made by a thousand 
cold and formal doctrinal lessons which fail to 
reach the heart. 

"If, on the other hand, you yourself either 
neglect religion, or have only the form, your 
neglect, or your cold and formal method of 
speaking on the subject, and your lifeless 
prayers, may establish the conviction in the 



144 ^-^^ RELIGION OF THE FAMILY, 



minds of your children that it is but a mass of 
speculative notions and idle ceremonies." 

2. We should give regular ajid systematic in- 
structio7i to our children at home. 

Parents should feel the duty resting upon 
them in their individual resjDonsibilities to im- 
part to their children the deep lessons of piety, 
truth, and morality. This is a duty which can 
not be wholly committed to the hands of others. 
Parents are the proper and most efficient moral 
educators of their own children, and into their 
hands is given this sacred trust for which the 
God of the universe wnll call them to an ac- 
count. There may be many others much more 
capable than we of leading them through the 
various processes of mental discipline and edu- 
cation, but unto us has been emphatically com- 
mitted the beautiful work of leading our chil- 
dren to seek those unfading joys which come 
from God only, and for this work no one else is 
so competent or so favorably situated as are 
we. "And thoit shalt teach them diligently 
unto thy children, and thott shalt talk of them 
when thou sittest iu thine house, and when thou 
w^alkest by the way, and when thou liest down, 
and when thou risest up." 



PARENTS. 



Let us urge this upon parents as a personal 
duty. In too many instances we attempt to 
evade it by committing it to the hands of oth- 
ers. Our children are sent to the Sabbath- 
school and are brought to the Church, and the 
consciences of many parents rest easy under 
the conviction that their children are being 
trained in the nurture of the Lord. The Sab- 
bath-school is a beautiful institution, and an 
essential adjunct to the Christian Church. It 
has proved a blessing to thousands of the chil- 
dren of Christian parents, but especially has it 
proved a blessing by bringing together the chil- 
dren of irreligious parents, and instructing them 
in the path of life. But if it is made to supply 
the place of home instruction, and the children 
of professors of religion are cast upon it to 
receive that religious education which should 
have been given at home, it has passed beyond 
its true province, and becomes an evil instead 
of a blessing. No, mother, you especially are 
to be the preceptor of your child, teaching it 
the way to God and heaven. This is your 
highest calling — your noblest mission. Fulfill 
it well, and you will have accomplished some- 
thing worthy of your life. Train that young 

10 



146 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY, 

plant for God. It is a tender exotic, whose 
native clime is heaven. Believe us, it is worthy 
of your most careful culture, and will grow into 
an immortal and fruitful plant to gladden your 
heart forever. Yet beautiful as it is, it is still 
but the creature of a day, passing as the arrow 
through the air — a spirit from God and return- 
ing to him — ^just hovering over the great gulf 
till a few moments hence it shall be no more, 
but drop into an unchangeable eternity. One 
thing it needs to know — the way to heaven — 
how to reach safely that eternal abode. God 
himself has condescended to teach the way. 
For this very end he came from heaven. He 
has written it down in a book — O, give them the 
lessons of that book! At any j^rice give them 
the book 0/ God !" If you have not time, 
make time. Sacrifice any thing else ; but on 
the altar of a busy, bustling, worldly life, sacri- 
fice not the immortal interests of these tender 
buddings of your own existence. 

Teach them the Bible; adapt its lessons to 
the wants of their young minds ; unfold to them 
its wonderful doctrines as they are able to ap- 
preciate them; familiarize them with its beauti- 
ful examples ; instruct them in the demands of 



PARENTS. 



H7 



its pure morality; reiterate to them the story 
of redeeming love ; open up before them as 
soon as practicable the vitality and spirituality 
of the Christian life ; examine their young hearts, 
and be prepared to meet and foster the first 
buddings of a religious experience ; introduce 
them into the Sabbath-school; bring them with 
you to the house of God ; draw them to your 
side on the calm and holy Sabbath, yea, if pos- 
sible, on each day, at the solemn sunset when 
the world is being hushed to silence and rest, 
and breathe on them a parent's blessing, and 
drop into their young and impressible hearts 
these lessons of heavenly instruction; once 
there they will remain forever. 

Tal^ with your children about religion. Not 
in dry and formal lectures, lest you surfeit them, 
but with the familiarity, the tender interest, and 
the gentleness of a mother— with the affection- 
ate solicitude of an earnest and believing father 
Believe it, they will not tire of these lessons, 
nor dread the recurrence of these tender and 
affectionate conversations. They see in it a 
new evidence of your love; it is an admission 
of them into your society and tender familiarity, 
than which nothing is more dear to your chil- 



148 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



dren, and they will meet you more than half- 
way in these kind and beautiful advances. 

Forget not to pray with them and for them. 
Not only erect the family altar and bring them 
with you to the family devotions, but take them 
with you to the secret chamber and pray with 
them alone. Commend them there to God, and 
there implore his heavenly benedictions upon 
them. How mighty must be the influence of 
such an exercise on the impressible heart of 
childhood ! 

Set before them good examples, and throw 
around them pure and gracious influences. Our 
children are mirrors, living mirrors, which not 
only catch up the image of every object and 
event that comes before them, but by virtue of 
their vitality they retain them all. Every faculty 
of their young nature is an absorbent, which 
eagerly drinks in and appropriates to its growth 
and development every thing that comes before 
it. Let home, then, be a domestic sanctuar}-, 
redolent with heavenly influences. Let its so- 
ciet}^, its conversations, its amusements, its 
ornaments, and its books be refined and pure. 
It is due to them that they should be sur- 
rounded by these healthful religious influences. 



PARENTS. 



149 



As the guardians of their moral nature, it is 
our duty to provide these circumstances for 
their moral wants, with even a greater weight 
of obligation than we feel incumbent upon us 
the duty of providing for their physical necessi- 
ties. Indeed, what avails the most ardent affec- 
tion which reaches only to the mortal part, if 
we neglect the moral and immortal, and if all 
that lies in our power is not done, that after 
their passage through the present short-lived 
scene of things, they may enter into eternity in 
the favor of God ? 

3. In addition to these positive efforts to give 
to our children a religious culture, it is also a 
duty to withhold them from all evil examples 
and influences ; to keep them from such amuse- 
ments, such scenes, such company, such books, 
as are calculated to corrupt their minds, lead 
them into bad habits, inspire worldly-minded- 
ness, and diminish and finally destroy their love 
and reverence for sacred and divine things. It 
is our duty to exercise here the authority of ac- 
countable parents, and not to yield to the choice 
and solicitations of our young, and inexperienced, 
and thoughtless children. From the age, the 
superior knowledge, the experience, and the 



150 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



relation of parents, it is their right, nay, their 
duty to prescribe what shall be the amuse- 
ments, the company, the books, and the habits 
of their thoughtless child. The thin, clear ice 
that covers over that river is beautiful ; its 
glassy smoothness is inviting to your child — so 
level, so smooth, so clear, he would leap upon 
it as a new and beautiful play-ground ; uncon- 
scious of the flowing death that lurks beneath 
it, he solicits your consent. Will you give it ? 
Rather, do you not feel that it is your right and 
your duty positively to prohibit it? The gay 
and beautiful world, with its giddy round of 
pleasures, wnth its ever-shifting fashions, with 
its painted and gilded vices, with its ornamented 
saloons, its dancing-schools, its ball-rooms, its 
theaters, its biUiard, nine-pin, gambling, and 
drinking saloons, its free and easy life, its fash- 
ionable customs, its light, exciting, trashy litera- 
ture, presents a very captivating appearance to 
your son and daughter. It is beautiful — they 
would love to mingle with its scenes ; it seems 
happy — they would love to participate in its 
pleasures ; it looks innocent — w4iy may they 
not plunge into it; they are young — why should 
they not be free and happy? Unconscious of 



PARENTS. 



the moral death that is here covered over, gilded 
and kept out of sight, they sohcit your permis- 
sion. Dare you give it ? Rather, do you not 
feel it your right, and your duty, positively to 
prohibit it? 

Alas, how many professing Christians yield 
to these solicitations ! How many, though they 
will not give direct permission, yet fail to pro- 
hibit, and look on and see their children step 
by step advancing into the swift circles of the 
fearful whirlpool of a worldly Hfe ! A dreadful 
experiment is tried by many unthinking parents 
with their children — that of allowing them first 
to become thoroughly imbued with the princi- 
ples of a worldly life, to become estranged from 
the house of God and from sacred and divine 
things, to enter freely and largely into the follies, 
fashions, and vices of the world, to form sinful 
habits, to imbibe dangerous lessons and prin- 
ciples, to become attached to wicked and worldly 
companions — with the deceptive hope that in 
maturer years they themselves will see the folly 
of such a life, will be awakened to a conscious- 
ness of their need of religion, will be suddenly 
arrested by some powerful religious influence, 
be made penitent and be converted, and thus 



152 THE RELIGION OF THE FA MIL Y. 



wipe out all the past, and remedy by a few 
penitent tears the evils of a life, and the faults 
of careless and negligent parents. Dreadful, 
dreadful experiment — always involving loss, in 
countless instances proving fatal ! 

What would we think of that parent who 
would stand on the borders of the hollow, 
whirling maelstrom, and with a single thread 
around the body of his child, would toss him 
out farther and still farther from his arms, into 
the sweep of the circles of that fearful whirl- 
pool, with the mad hope that before he is finally 
drawn into its yawning vortex, he will draw him 
back again to his bosom? But do you act a 
wiser and less hazardous part, O parent, when 
you toss these lambs of your bosom out upon 
the boiling, surging, ingulfing ocean of the 
world, with the mad hope that ere it finally 
overwhelms them and drinks them down to its 
fathomless depths, some power will seize them 
and bring them back again to your arms? It 
is madness. If you love them, venture no such 
experiment. If you would save them, save 
them while they are yet young, innocent, and 
impressible at your feet. 



IX. 



CONCERNING DIVORCE. 

HAT there are very powerful forces at 
work in modern society threatening 
to produce great changes in our social 
life none can deny. Whether these forces are 
working good or evil, and whether these 
changes will be for the better or the worse 
eventually, are questions which would awaken 
debate, and would be decided differently as 
they are received by different minds and studied 
from different standpoints. By some they would 
all be generalized under the term progress^ and 
would be welcomed as indicators of a transition 
to a better civilization. By others they could 
only be esteemed dangerous and revolutionary, 
tending toward social disruption and anarchy. 

We are convinced that modern society is 
passing through a transition ; that opinions, 
beliefs, modes of action are changing; that 
doctrines, laws, and institutions are undergoing 

153 




154 ^-^^ RELIGION OF THE FAMILY, 



a searching scrutiny ; and that a very different 
state of society from the present and the past 
is to be the result. We beh'eve that many so- 
cial evils, many wrongs, many errors, many un- 
just and unequal institutions will be overthrown 
and eliminated by the process. Doubtless the 
world is making progress. . Society and govern- 
ments are learning to take broader, clearer, and 
more rational views of human relations, needs, 
and duties ; are learning to detect and remove 
inequalities and wrongs, and to institute wiser, 
more humane, and more just and equal laws. 
We are convinced that many of the social tend- 
encies of our day, which are calculated to pro- 
duce anxiety by present agitation, are yet tend- 
ing toward good results ; and as the storm that 
may be fearful in its force while raging, yet re- 
sults in good, so these movements will eventu- 
ate in ridding the world of some wrongs, and 
giving to society better things in iheir stead. 

But in all transitions there are dangers — 
dangers from the impatience of reformers in 
too great haste to force changes on society, 
which is usually sluggish and slow to change ; 
dangers, on the other hand, from the pertina- 
cious maintenance of error and the consecration 



CONCERNING DIVORCE. 155 



of injustice, after multitudes have detected the 
errors and have felt the injustice ; but dangers 
still more serious, from sacrificing the most sa- 
cred virtues and the wisest and best of institu- 
tions in the hurried impulse of change. While 
we heartily sympathize with many of the mod- 
ern movements toward reformation and change, 
and with the earnest attempts that are making 
to solve grave social problems, and to cast out 
of society oppressions, inequalities, and wrongs, 
we can not help thinking there are some most 
dangerous and alarming tendencies at work in 
our own American society. The sphere in which 
these tendencies to which our thoughts are just 
now directed are working, is that of our family 
life. No one can be insensible to the growing 
demoralization of society, both in this country 
and in Europe, with regard to the sacredness, 
responsibilities, and obligations of domestic 
life, and the consequent alarming frequency of 
divorce. 

It is not necessary to detail here the statistics 
which would show that there is really cause for 
serious apprehension, as to what is to be the 
final result of this rapidly increasing evil in this 
country. The evil is already of sufficient mag- 



156 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 

nitude to have attracted the attention of all 
thoughtful people, to have called for action on 
the part of several ecclesiastical bodies, and to 
have called forth grave and serious articles in 
Magazines and Reviews, both at home and 
abroad. When a newly married couple can 
forthwith put into several papers a protest 
against the tyranny of marriage, the husband 
and wnfe jointly declaring that their marriage 
is to continue during their ov/n pleasure, and 
that marriage is a thing between themselves 
and God, wdth which society and the law has 
nothing whatever to do ; when a well-known 
divine celebrates in a sickly, sentimental, and 
romantic manner a marriage between parties 
that have previously denied all divine or legal 
relations of the union, and discarded from the 
ceremony all prayer and the slightest reference 
to religious duty or obligation, we may certainly 
begin to apprehend that there is an alarming 
decay of public sentiment with regard to the 
sacredness and divine sanctions of this institu- 
tion. When in one of the smallest States of 
the Union, there have been 593 divorces in five 
years, in another one divorce for every nineteen 
marriages during the past year, and in another 



CONCERNING DIVORCE, 157 

one divorce for every eleven marriages — when 
in one city there were three hundred and sixty- 
eight divorces in a single year, and in another 
three hundred and twenty-eight, and there is 
every reason to believe that these States and 
cities are no worse than their neighbors, we 
can see that, so far as numbers and calculations 
can approximate the truth, the prospect is dis- 
mal. When in one State ten causes are enu- 
merated by law as sufficient ground for divorce, 
and another, after declaring five reasons why a 
marriage may be declared void from the begin- 
ning, goes on to mention six other causes for 
which absolute divorce may be granted, and 
w^hile in several States divorce may be obtained 
on the application of but one of the parties, 
while the other party may remain in ignorance 
of the appHcation, and neither one of the parties 
may be a permanent resident of the State, we 
have certainly reasons to conclude that the laws 
of the land on this subject have become as 
demoralized as the sentiment of the people. 

We think we are safe in saying that, in this 
Christian day and country, the case stands thus : 
On the one hand, there is the Church and her 
uniform interpretation of the Christian law, de- 



158 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 

daring that marriage is a contract of Divine in- 
stitution, an estate of God's establishment, more 
ancient than any form of civil government, and 
the only legitimate foundation of families, which 
was vindicated and restored to its original rule 
by the law of our Lord and Savior ; which, ac- 
cording to the apostles, represents on earth the 
holy, inviolable, eternal union of Christ and his 
Church ; and which the Church, together with 
various civil governments, has never ceased to 
regard as the most holy, binding, indissoluble 
contract and union into which one human being 
can enter with another. On the other hand, 
there is the civil law, and a widening popular 
sentiment, which demands the right of treating 
this estate of marriage as if it were in no wise 
under the control of divine law; as if its sanc- 
tity were a myth ; as if it were the sole creation 
and ordinance of the State, and to be dealt with 
and rent asunder as a simple affair of conven- 
ience and policy ; as if all its vows, spoken and 
implied, were binding only so long as the caprice 
and humor of the parties agreed, and then to 
be put away with a slight formality, and a new 
contract with another entered into. 

This state of things is more than an accident, 



CONCERNING DIVORCE. 159 



more than transient aberration of sentiment and 
feeling. He has studied the question but very 
superficially who has not discovered that it is 
hnked with a deep purpose ; that it is glorified 
by many as one of the elements of progress ; 
that it is a movement of infidel socialism, of a 
philosophy which would break away from all 
sacred and wholesome restraints, which glorifies 
libertinism as liberty, and which would substi- 
tute the instincts and impulses of our own cor- 
rupt nature for the voice of God, and even for 
the laws of society. It is not local and tem- 
porary, it is infecting society nearly throughout 
all Christendom. To say noticing of France 
and the German States, the evil presents itself 
in worse forms in England than in our own 
country, because not accommodated by such 
flexible laws as with us. 

Is the Church's interpretation of the divine 
law of marriage wrong, and is this movement 
of modern society right ? Has the Church been 
usurping an authority, and enforcing a restraint 
in this matter, that society is right in breaking 
away from ? Is marriage only a civil contract, 
an affair between the parties themselves, over 
which any supposed divine law should have no 



l60 THE RELIGION OF THE FAIdlLY. 



control, and with which even civil law should 
interfere as little as possible ? for this is the 
real and final tendency of the modern doctrine. 
We reply to these questions, first, that marriage 
is a divine institution; is a subject of divine 
revelation and regulation ; has a higher signifi- 
cance and wider relations than its mere offices 
in social life, and that it is the duty of God's 
Church, within her own folds at least, to guard 
it by God's laws, and to preserve its sanctity 
and purity by her teaching and discipline. 
Secondly, that it is an institution of most im- 
portant social relations, of vital connection with 
the highest interests of the State, and, there- 
fore, is the subject of civil law, and should be 
most sacredly guarded, both with regard to 
entering into and being freed from its bonds 
and obligations. 

We have said the Church has always claimed 
the right of enforcing doctrine and discipline 
with regard to this institution. She has recog- 
nized it as an ordinance of God, not created and 
not to be set aside by mere human laws. It has 
religious aspects and immortal relations with 
which society has nothing to do. The Church 
also recognizes its social relations, and expects 



CONCERNING DIVORCE. l6l 



the State to be wise and strong enough to see 
and enforce the solemn obh'gations which make 
this institution the very foundation of the State 
itself. The Church, at least according to the 
doctrines of Protestantism, has no right or abil- 
ity to compel society to accept her doctrines and 
laws, except so far as she can do so by the in- 
fluence of her teachings and example ; but as 
far as her own communicants are concerned, it 
is her right and duty to enforce and maintain 
what she believes to be the law of God. How 
far the Church may accommodate her discipline 
to a demoralized state of sociefy is a question 
^ that is worthy of debate, but which we can not 
now enter ; but it is certain that she can not 
compromise what she believes to be the divine 
doctrine in this matter, however she may find 
herself sometimes unable to enforce it. 

The doctrine of the Christian Church is well 
known. It is simply an acceptance of our Sav- 
ior's interpretation of the institution of marriage 
and the divine law of divorce, as given by St. 
Mark, x, 3, et seq. On this foundation the Ro- 
man Church, in doctrine, has sustained the ab- 
solute indissolubility of the marriage tie, except 
for the cause of adultery, and, in practice, has 
II 



1 62 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 

met the exigencies of certain cases by special 
ecclesiastical indulgences. The canon law of 
the Eastern and Anglican Churches admits of 
other reasons for separation a 7ne?isa et thoro, 
but will not allow any cause except incontinence 
as valid for the contracting of another marriage. 
This is probably the true doctrine and correct 
practice of the Christian Church. The alarm- 
ing prevalence and facility of divorce has 
recently called forth action in the Assemblies 
and Conferences of the religious bodies of 
our country, and the resolutions and recom- 
mendations amount to a re-affirmation of the 
doctrine of the Eastern and Anglican Churches.- 
Is this uniform interpretation of the law of 
Christ correct ? A vigorous writer in an article 
in Eraser's Magazine, which was also repub- 
lished in our own Eclectic, says of "the relig- 
ious argument," as it is called, " It rests upon 
one solitary passage in the Gospels, which is 
quite misinterpreted; and when that one pas- 
sage is rightly understood, it becomes clear that 
no word is found in the Christian Scriptures 
prejudging the question of divorce. As we read 
in St. Matthew — xix, 3 — the Pharisees asked 
Jesus, ^ Is it lawful for a man to put away his 



CONCERNING DIVORCE, 1 63 

wife for every cause f which ^ Moses in the law' 
distinctly allowed. Observe : the question is 
not under what circumstances a court of law 
may pronounce a divorce ; that topic is not even 
touched ; but whether a hitsbaud may under all 
circumstances use the liberty given him by 
Moses, of taking the decision into his own hand. 
The decision is, ^ Certainly not ; but for one 
grave offense only.' Now, that reply in no way 
touches this argument ; for, in common with all 
Christendom, we refuse to the husband juris- 
diction even in that extreme case. The reply 
of Jesus did but put a moral limitation on the 
Jewish husband's legal power. It in no respect 
dealt with the general question of divorce by a 
public court of law. Hence, upon Christian 
grounds, it has no place whatever in this argu- 
ment." 

We have met the substance of this exposition 
in the Westminster Review and in several pub- 
lications in our own country, and it is at least 
an excellent example of the facihty with which 
the teachings of the Scriptures maybe perverted 
and set aside. Let us a litlle more carefully 
examine the teachings of our Lord on this sub- 
ject. The ancient law allowed the Jews to put 



164 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



away their wives by writing a bill of divorce- 
ment. It is not necessary to particularize the 
cases in which this was allowed. It was allowed, 
and Avas, therefore, made a plea for trying our 
Lord. St. Mark x, 3, et seq. 

The Pharisees came to him, and asked him, 
Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife ? 
tempting him. And he answered and said unto 
them, What did Moses command you ? And 
they said, Moses suffered to write a bill of di- 
vorcement, and to put her away. And Jesus 
answered and said unto them. For the hardness 
of your hearts, he wrote you this precept : But 
from the beginning of the creation, God made 
them male and female. For this cause shall a 
man leave his father and mother, and cleave to 
his wife ; and they twain shall, be one flesh : so 
then they are no more twain, but one flesh. 
What, therefore, God hath joined together, let 
not man put asunder." 
And furthermore — 

" In the house his disciples asked him again of 
the same matter. And he said unto them. Who- 
soever shall put away his wife, and marry an- 
other, committeth adultery against her. And 
if a woman shall put away her husband, and 



CONCERNING DIVORCE, 1 65 



be married to another, she committeth adul- 
tery." 

To this St. Luke adds — 

"And whosoever marrieth her that is put 
away from her husband, committeth adultery." 

Two things are here plainly taught. First, 
That marriage in its first estate, and now by the 
Lord's reiteration, admits of no polygamy — 
" they twain shall be one flesh^^'' excluding ut- 
terly a third party to this union. But, secondly, 
There is also here taught, most distinctly and 
strongly, the indissoluble nature of marriage. 
According to this it can not be obliterated. To 
put away a wife and marry another, or to put 
away a husband and marry another, or for a 
third party to marry the one put away, is, with- 
out any equivocation, pronounced to be an act 
of adultery. 

Again : The Gospel law permits one single 
exception only to the stringency of this rule. 
And this exception confirms the rule. The 
marriage bond may\,^ dissolved upon the ground 
of adultery. Dissolved, we say, so far as to 
permit the innocent party at least to marry 
again during the lifetime of the other. This 
we learn from several passages. St. Matthew — 



1 66 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 

xix, 3, et seq — narrating the same conversation 
which was just quoted from St. Mark's Gospel, 
records the Lord's declaration as follows : 

" And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put 
away his wife, except it be for fornication, and 
shall marry another, committeth adultery : and 
whoso marrieth her which is put away, doth 
commit adultery." 

Again in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 
V, 31, 32, the Lord thus declared his will with- 
out reference to any specific question : 

" It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away 
his wife, let him give her a writing of divorce- 
ment ; but I say unto you, That whosoever 
shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of 
fomicatiojt, causes her to commit adultery : 
and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced, 
committeth adultery." 

This exception of adultery proves the general 
rule of the indissolubility of marriage. It is 
the sole exception. This has been declared by 
Divine authority to be the one only cause which 
can be urged to dissolve the marriage relation. 
Except upon this ground, every divorce which 
allows the parties to marry again, contradicts the 
Lord's law, for the parties are still, by the light 



CONCERNING DIVORCE. 1 67 



of the Divine law, husband and wife. There 
may have been certain obstacles existing at the 
time of marriage, such as consangunity within 
the forbidden degrees, insanity, idiocy, etc., 
either of which, it is generally agreed by jur- 
ists, invalidate the marriage from the begin- 
ning ; and the proof of which authorizes the 
court to declare it to be null and void ; and 
there may be certain cases of intolerable hard- 
ship which may fully justify the court for the 
protection of an injured citizen in granting a 
legal separation a 7nensa et thoro, or as the 
French term it, separation de corps j but in the 
light of the Divine law no obstacle or event 
whatever which may arise after the marriage 
can interfere to procure a divorce by which the 
marriage is utterly dissolved, and the innocent 
person is allowed to marry again, saving only 
this one of connubial infidelity. This we be- 
lieve to be the Divine law of divorce, and, con- 
sequently, the law of the Church. 

Marriage is one of those divine ordinances 
which is limited to no country or dispensation, 
which has most vital relations to the moral and 
spiritual, and even immortal destinies of the 
race, and is therefore properly subject to the 



1 68 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



Divine will and law. But it is also an institution 
having most intimate connection with the safety 
and welfare of the State, and therefore must of 
necessity be subject to control and regulation by 
civil law. There are not very many who have 
become so absurd as to suppose that an institu- 
tion, so vitally related to the welfare of society, 
can be left wholly to the will and caprice of indi- 
viduals. There is, however, a very considerable 
school of writers who maintain that it should be 
trammeled" by as few laws as possible, and 
that both entrance into the marriage state, and 
exit from it, ought to be left as nearly as possi- 
ble to the freedom of individuals; that it is a 
mere civil and individual contract, and the 
terms of the contract ought to be left to the 
parties themselves. Perhaps but few are wiUing 
to state the theory so boldly as this, but this is 
the ultimate meaning of much that is said of the 
tyranny of marriage laws, and of the demands 
for increased facilities for divorce. 

While there is at present not much danger of 
these extreme views obtaining very general 
adoption, yet their influence is at this moment 
very widely felt in American and English society. 
They are depreciating the solemnity and sa- 



CONCERNING DIVORCE. 1 69 



credness of the marriage contract; they are 
leading multitudes to look lightly on the force 
and significance of the marriage vows ; facili- 
ties afforded for obtaining release from these 
obligations, and familiarity with the frequency 
of separations and divorces, are leading hus- 
bands and wives, and even those contemplating 
marriage, to admit to themselves the practica- 
bility of separation as a remedy for disappoint- 
ment or for domestic disagreement and hard- 
ship. While multitudes would be startled at 
the announcement that marriage is to be left to 
the freedom of individuals, and is to be without 
law, they are not startled at the frequency and 
facility of divorce, which is silently undermining 
the foundations of the whole institution, and 
practically reducing the marriage contract to 
one of convenience and pleasure, to be contin- 
ued or discontinued at the will of the parties. 

It is evident that an institution of such vital 
relations can not be left without the restraints 
and regulations of law. If there were no con- 
sequences of marriage, if it were only a matter 
of convenience and pleasure between two indi- 
viduals, the State could well enough afford to 
let it alone. But marriage is the parent of fam- 



1 70 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 

ilies, is the creator of nations, is the conserva- 
tor of morals and of patriotism, is the educator 
of citizens, and is in a thousand ways connected 
with the safety and welfare of the subjects whom 
government is bound to protect. It must there- 
fore be regulated by law, and the question is 
only how much and how far should the law in- 
terpose its guards and restraints. For ourself 
we would answer this question by saying that, 
of course, the more nearly civil law conforms to 
the will and law of God in this case, the better 
will the solemnity and sanctity of marriage be 
maintained, the better will the purity and sta- 
bility of society be preserved, and the better 
will the interests of the marriage parties, of their 
offspring, and of society at large be subserved. 
The object of all laws of the State is the pro- 
tection of its subjects, both individually and 
collectively, and it is the duty of the State to 
save its individual subjects from oppression, 
from peculiar hardships even, so far as this can 
be done without incurring risk of a greater evil 
to its subjects collectively. Easy divorce might 
often work admirably for a few individuals, but 
facility and frequency of divorce must work ruin 
to society. The very least that civil law ought 



CONCERNING DIVORCE. 



171 



to do in creating guards and restraints over this 
institution may be arranged under the following 
heads : 

I. The State should aim in all laws, and all 
its treatment of this great interest, to preserve 
the solemnity and dignity of the estate of mar- 
riage. To this end the statute law should, as 
far as practicable, prevent all hasty, secret, ille- 
gal, and irresponsible marriages. The State has 
the right to know who and how many enter into 
this relation, the age, and legal qualifications of 
the parties. All marriages should take place 
only under the license of the State. And yet 
in many of our States there is almost absolutel}. 
no law on the subject of entering into marriage. 
In many places men and women, known and 
unknown, publicly and privately, at any hour of 
the day or night, without signature, without wit- 
ness, without identification, clandestinely or oth- 
erwise, are allowed to enter into this state with- 
Qut let or hinderance. In other States, the whole 
burden of ascertaining the marriageability of the 
parties, and the responsibility of the legality of 
the marriage, is most absurdly thrown upon the 
clergyman who performs the ceremony. Such 
a state of things tends in advance to demoralize 



172 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 

society on this subject. The State gives it no 
attention, does nothing to dignify and indicate 
the true honor of marriage, does nothing to 
identify the parties for the sake of the peace 
and good order of the community. It gives the 
friends of the innocent and unsuspecting no op- 
portunity to detect and expose profligate designs. 
It treats marriage so lightly that the people soon 
learn to look upon it with the same levity, and 
it is not at all surprising if the parties to hasty 
and ill-assorted unions, after their plans are 
accomplished, easily slide into the current of 
divorce; and when, as is so widely the case, 
the divorce itself may be easily obtained, no 
wonder that in time we have an increasing 
multitude of hasty and ill-assorted unions. 

2. With regard to divorce itself, there are 
three aspects in which the legislator should 
view it. First, there may be injustice and great 
individual wrong in the marriage itself. There 
may have been certain obstacles existing at the 
time of marriage, fraudulently kept from the 
knowledge of one of the parties, or even obstacles 
unknown to either party, sufficient to vitiate the 
contract. For frauds or vital mistakes in the 
marriage itself, the State certainly has the right 



CONCERNING DIVORCE. 173 



of interference for the protection of its subjects. 
Hence jurists are nearly all agreed that certain 
causes invalidate the marriage from the begin- 
ning, and several of the States make provisions 
for this. Most of the New England States, and 
others, provide that, on account of forbidden 
consanguinity, insufficiency of age, lunacy, or 
idiocy of one of the parties, existing before mar- 
riage, force or fraud used to obtain consent, etc., 
the court, on sufficient proof, may declare the 
marriage void from the beginning. 

Secondly, even when adultery is not charged, 
there may undoubtedly be cases where the law 
should interfere for the protection of oppressed 
and wronged citizens. Certain cases of intoler- 
able hardship, of violent and shameful treat- 
ment, of abuse and indignity, of habitual drunk- 
enness, of convicted crime and long imprison- 
ment, of willful and continued desertion, and of 
other gross conduct which ruins all the moral 
purposes of marriage, evidently call for the in- 
terposition of the civil law. And in such cases 
the State, by virtue of that authority by which 
she protects the hves, the property, 'and the 
public order of her citizens, may justly separate 
the husband and wife, and deliver the oppressed 



174 RELIGION OF THE FAMILY, 



party from all legal rights and claims held by 
the oppressor. But the State is not hereby 
justified in granting absolute divorce. It may 
and should decree a legal separation, because 
the marriage contract is a legal contract ; but it 
is more than a legal contract, it is a divinely 
appointed joining together of God, and what 
God has joined together let not man put asun- 
der, except as God himself declares the union 
annulled. The State may declare null and void 
the legal claims of a wrong-doer over the op- 
pressed party, for the State is to a great extent 
the creator and preserver of these legal claims. 
The power of the State in these cases justly ex- 
tends to a divorce a mensa et thoro, and no far- 
ther. Beyond this the divine law prevails. The 
State goes too far when for such causes it de- 
clares such a dissolution of the bond as permits 
either of the parties to marry again during the 
lifetime of the other. This limitation is not only 
required by the divine law, but we are satisfied 
it is absolutely necessary for the preservation 
of the sanctity of marriage and the purity and 
safety of society. Absolute divorces for causes 
of this kind is exactly what is now demoralizing 
society, and is the evil that is awaking alarm in 



CONCERNING DIVORCE. ^175 



thoughtful minds. The law of separatio7t only 
may bear heavily on a limited number of indi- 
viduals, but less heavily of course than the evil 
from which it delivers them, or they would not 
seek the remedy, while no human laws can avert 
entirely, even from innocent persons, the conse- 
quences of wrong doing by others ; and in this 
case the hardship of the individual is a vastly 
less evil than would be the demoralization of 
marriage from frequency of absolute divorce to 
society at large. 

3. There remains the third ground for inter- 
ference on the part of the State; namely, the 
right of the State to annul absolutely the mar- 
riage, v^hen its whole moral significance has 
been subverted by connubial infidelity. On 
this ground all are agreed, and the laws of man 
are sanctioned by the higher laws of God. But 
there still are grave questions which we do not 
purpose to discuss here, and on which we can 
only affirm our own conviction : first, that the 
law should be equally emphatic in condemning 
connubial infidelity on the part of the husband 
as on the part of the wife, and, secondly, that a 
divorce a viiictdo matri7nonii^ by which the 
marriage is utterly dissolved, should either con- 



176 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 

fer the right of re-marriage only on the innocent 
person, or the statute law should make provision 
for the punishment of the crime of adultery ; 
otherwise it is not difficult to see the danger of 
inducing the commission of adultery as a means 
of dissolving a hated marriage, and bringing 
about a union with a new and preferred partner. 

Such protection and interference we believe 
are demanded of the State for the preservation 
of the sacredness of this vital institution, and 
for the guardianship of her own subjects from 
oppression and fraud. She has a right to de- 
mand that all marriages shall be matters of 
publicity, and shall be known to the State. 
She has a right to declare marriages accom- 
pUshed through fraud and force, or deception, 
null and void ; in certain cases of peculiar 
hardship and suffering, she has the right to 
interpose for the protection and relief of her 
suffering subjects, so far as to deliver the suf- 
ferer from the legal rights and claims of the 
oppressor; and in cases of connubial infidelity 
she has the right to declare the marriage con- 
tract obliterated, and the injured party abso- 
lutely free. Beyond this she has no right to 
go ; less than this does not sufficiently guard 



CONCERNING DIVORCE, 1 77 



this institution so intimately connected with the 
peace and order of society, as well as with the 
highest moral and religious welfare of the race. 

We are not unaware that these views are not 
in accordance with the demands of certain re- 
formers, and will draw only a smile from some 
who like to be recognized as the "advanced" 
thinkers of the age. Yet we are convinced that 
the laws of God are the wisest and the best in 
this matter, as in all others, and that the laws 
of God can not be broken by States, any more 
than by individuals, without consequences of 
evil as much more serious and far-reaching, as 
the State is greater than the individual. God's 
law in this case, as in all other cases, is not ar- 
bitrary, but wise and good, growing out of the 
necessities and relations of the marriage insti- 
tution to society. The world is not so young 
that we have not had ample opportunity to ex- 
periment with this matter, and history contains 
abundant warning and admonition. We need 
not stop to do more than refer to the solemn 
warnings of French history, and to see how in- 
timately social decadence and demoralization of 
marriage are associated. When the French 
Revolution swept away the usages of ages and 
12 



178 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 

the sanctity of religion, its special war seemed 
against the marriage contract ; and six thou- 
sand divorces are said to have taken place, in 
the city of Paris alone, in the space of two 
years and three months. From this fearful 
shock French society has scarcely yet begun to 
recover, and Paris still retains her notorious 
pre-eminence as the most Hcentious city of the 
world. 

But the lessons of antiquity are better, be- 
cause worked out on a larger scale, anxi exhib- 
iting more clearly the natural and necessary 
consequences of a disregard of these inviolable 
social laws. Greece and Rome for ages shame 
our Christian licentiousness. Roman philoso- 
phers, poets, and satirists hold up to public 
scorn and indignation doctrines less latitudina- 
rian than are taught in our own days, and fore- 
tell, with vivid distinctness, the certain ruin that 
eventually came from a wanton abuse of a lib- 
erty of divorce which did not greatly exceed 
ours. The institutions of Romulus made the 
marriage union indissoluble. Three hundred 
years afterward, the Twelve Tables gave to the 
husband the freedom of divorce ; yet the Re- 
public had existed five hundred years, when the 



CONCERNING DIVORCE. 



179 



first instance of divorce occurred, and the ex- 
perimenter was loaded with public opprobrium. 
But it was the beginning of the end. The law 
that gave to the husband power to dissolve the 
marriage almost at will, struck its first blow by 
producing a state of things wherein the Roman 
daughters would not enter into legitimate mar- 
riage at all. The marriage was simply in- 
fer and the wife never came into the hand 
of her husband." While this system prevailed 
almost universally among the plebeians, its in- 
fluence had the effect of producing among the 
patricians a state of things in which the mar- 
riage contract might be dissolved by either one 
of the parties. So universal was the custom of 
i7iferred marriages among the plebeians, which 
the husband could and did set aside at his 
pleasure, and so common and alarming were 
the voluntary divorces among the patricians, 
that Augustus made several powerful attempts 
to put some restraint on the facility of these 
separations. But it was too late, and his laws 
and decrees were overpowered by the prevail- 
ing corruption of manners. The nation per- 
ished, ''utterly corrupted in its own corruption." 
Gibbon, certainly no bigot in this matter, tells 



l8o THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



the results of this freedom in a few emphatic 
words : " When the Roman matrons became 
the equal and voluntary companions of their 
lords, a new jurisprudence was introduced — 
that marriage, like other partnerships, might be 
dissolved by the abdication of one of the asso- 
ciates. In three centuries of prosperity and 
corruption, this principle was enlarged to fre- 
quent practice and pernicious abuse. Passion, 
interest, or caprice suggested daily motives for 
the dissolution of marriage. A word, a sign, a 
message, a letter, the mandate of a freedman, 
declared the separation. The most tender of 
human connections was degraded to a transient 
society of profit or pleasure. . . A specious 
theory is confuted by this free and perfect ex- 
periinent^ which de?nonstrates that the liberty 
of divorce does not contribute to happijiess and 
vii't^ie^ 

One would hardly suppose that this "specious 
theory " would need to be confuted by actual 
historical experiment. It ought to be apparent 
to every thoughtful mind, that liberty and facility 
of divorce, so far from " contributing to happi- 
ness and virtue," must of necessity undermine 
the very foundations of both. Remove legal 



CONCERNING DIVORCE. l8l 



restraints and social disgrace from these sepa- 
rations, and they would be needlessly multi- 
plied a thousand fold ; the sacredness, the 
stability, the moral significance of the union 
would be at an end ; thousands would never 
enter the marriage relation at all, thousands 
more would treat the relation as lightly as any 
other mere matter of caprice or passion ; all 
love, all mutual confidence, all forbearing one 
another in love, all the moral effect and disci- 
pline from the conviction of the all but irrevoca- 
ble force of the vow of union, would be lost out 
of society ; trifling disputes, instead of being 
healed, would be inflamed and allowed to in- 
crease and gather till they would force the final 
plunge. 

Facility of separation is a two-edged sword 
in its destructive power on society. It removes 
from the married pair the wholesome moral 
effect of restraint and discipline, which arises 
from the consideration that the union between 
them is irrevocable, that they are to live together, 
adapt themselves to each other, overcome httle 
differences of temper, grow into one spirit, and 
build up in their own little circle a home of 
happiness and virtue. On the other hand, if 



182 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 

husband and wife are perpetually admitting to 
themselves the possibility of separation, the 
very facility of a dissolution is a temptation to 
resort to it, even in cases of mere domestic 
disagreement, in the haste and passion of a 
transient dispute, and many would make the 
fatal plunge under a momentary aggravation, 
probably to spend the rest of their Uves in 
repenting their folly. 

But facility of separation necessarily draws 
after it the possibility of marrying with the 
premeditated intention of terminating the union 
after a limited time, and thus a fatal blow is 
struck to the whole meaning and sanctity of 
marriage. For if, when the union is formed, it 
is not intended and fully expected to be a life- 
union, what is the marriage but a formal and 
recognized prostitution ? Exactly this point 
was reached in Roman demoralization, and then 
came the end. So old Timeus in Terence rep- 
resents, that there can be no great harm if a 
young man, where it seems to be convenient, 
marry a lady whom he does not love : " You 
need not be afraid to take her. If you find you 
do not like her, you will only have to give her 
up." Not to reprobate and detest such pre- 



CONCERNING DIVORCE. 1 83 



tended marriages, is to justify the sensualism 
of every libertine. Says an English writer, who 
is by no means illiberal in his views on this 
subject, "No persons of high and pure mind 
can ever intend not to reprobate, not to detest, 
not to express disgust, at ^ temporary unions,' 
intended to be temporary from the first ; but if 
unlimited divorce is to be permitted, and is not 
to be resented, we lose all right to judge or 
reprove any union which covers itself by the 
mere w^ord ' marriage.' For though we may be 
clearly convinced that it is intended to be tem- 
porary, we have never a right to assert it while 
the parties keep their own counsel." The pur- 
pose may, indeed, be that of only one of the 
parties, unknown to the other, and the whole 
marriage, so far as he or she is concerned, be 
only a base fraud and deception of one of the 
parties. Thus would be undermined the foun- 
dation of all domestic virtue and happiness. 
What parent could feel the least security in 
giving his daughter into hands that may cast 
her off at pleasure, or to a husband who, at the 
very time, may mean that the union shall be 
only temporary ? What bride would feel the 
joy of confiding and hoping love on entering 



184 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY, 



into a union that may soon be repudiated by an 
unprincipled and fickle husband ? 

We have said enough to indicate how vitally 
the sanctity and inviolability of the marriage 
relation is linked with the purity, happiness, and 
safety of society. God foresaw this from the 
beginning, and prescribed for the very first pair 
the only, perpetual, and irrevocable law that 
can adequately guard and preserve this institu- 
tion. If there be a truth beyond all question, 
where God's law, social experience, the uniform 
record of our species, the inevitable and horrid 
results of its violation, every source of testi- 
mony, warning, and appeal concur, it is the 
sacredness of the marriage bond, and the na- 
tional decline which attends a tolerated disre- 
gard or facile rupture of its divine constitution. 

From the beginning of the creation God made 
them male and femxale. For this cause shall a 
man leave his fatlier and mother, and cleave to 
his wife : and they twain shall be one flesh. 
What therefore God hath joined together, let 
not man put asunder." 



X. 



POLITICAL RELATIONS OF WOMEN. 

O observant mind can be insensible to 
the large share of attention given, 
both at home and abroad, to ques- 
tions involving the rights and interests of 
women, the relations of the sexes, and grave 
social questions involving an almost radical re- 
construction of society. In England and Amer- 
ica there is evidently great restlessness on the 
subject of the so-called political rights of the 
female sex. We think we can trace the history 
of this restlessness. Though just now, per- 
haps, predominant in boldness and vigor of as- 
sertion in our country, its origin is not Amer- 
ican, but English, and its first demands were 
not for extravagant political rights for women, 
but the right to live, and to procure the means 
of life. The superabundance of female popula- 
tion in England, the great number left in an 
unmarried and unprotected state, the very few 

i8s 




1 86 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



vocations left open to women for the exercise 
of their industry and the means of living, the 
miserable pittance doled out to them for what- 
ever labor or service they were permitted to 
perform, at length aroused the attention of both 
sexes to the hardship of the lot of unmarried 
women, and the injustice that society was per- 
petually practicing toward them. At the same 
time education and intelligence were steadily 
advancing among the female population, and 
soon out of their own number arose women of 
talent who were able to make themselves felt as 
advocates and defenders of their own sex. The 
demand was for enlarged opportunities by 
which women could provide for themselves the 
means of independent livelihood. For years 
the subject was agitated in these simple as- 
pects. Wise and philanthropic men and women 
discussed the question, formed societies, tried 
experiments, endeavored to devise means by 
which independent and remunerative employ- 
ment could be provided for women. The same 
questions very naturally passed over to our own 
country, where the same difficulties to some 
extent exist, but in a very much less degree 
than in the Old World, the fundamental fact in 



POLITICAL RELATIONS OF WOMEN. 187 



the case — an excess of female population — be- 
ing in our country exactly reversed. Yet the 
instances in which females were left, either vol- 
untarily or involuntarily, in singleness, and the 
multitude of instances of struggling widow- 
hood, and the rapaciousness and injustice of 
employers, gave ample ground in our own 
country for the agitation of these questions. 

The case made out in behalf of women on 
these grounds is one that appeals powerfully to 
our sense of justice and our sympathy. The 
condition of women, alone and unprotected and 
unprovided for by the strong hand of man, 
whether that loneliness be desolate widowhood, 
or stricken orphanage, or unloved maidenhood, 
is even in our own day and country one of the 
gravest facts of our social life, and how to rem- 
edy the evils which encompass such women, 
increase the opportunities of independent live- 
lihood, ameliorate their sufferings, remove 
their temptations, and place them beyond the 
power of rapacious and unjust men is one of 
the greatest and most interesting social prob- 
lems of our day. The solution is evidently to 
be found in opening up more numerous and 
remunerative avocations to female industry 



1 88 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



This again enlarges the question, and opens up 
for discussion the capabilities of women, the 
fields of labor into ^Yhich it is possible for them 
to enter, and their comparative worth as labor- 
ers when placed side by side with men in the 
industries of life. 

From the importance and breadth of these 
questions we can readily see how their discus- 
sion would soon run into what is popularly 
knowm as the woman's rights agitation, and 
from the greater sprightUness and activity and 
more independent habits of thought and action 
of our countrywomen, it is not strange that they 
should soon outrun their transatlantic sisters 
in the urgency and extent of their demands. 
With us the problems of the welfare of unmar- 
ried women were soon supplemented by more 
agitating problems growing out of the marriage 
relation itself, and the agitation of these prob- 
lems has given rise to anomalous relations and 
modes of life as yet almost unknown in Euro- 
pean life, startling to travelers and observers 
who visit us from abroad, and send them back to 
Europe to astonish whole nations by books on 
" Marriage in the United States," '^New Amer- 
ica," New Rehgions of the United States," 



POLITICAL RELATIONS OF WOMEN. 1 89 

" Social Problems of the Great Republic," etc. 
From just demands in behalf of women for 
enlarged means of independence and self-pro- 
vision, with which every wise man and woman 
could heartily sympathize, the leaders of these 
agitations would ''claim every thing that society 
allows to men, from pantaloons and latch-keys 
to seats in the legislature and pulpits in the 
Church." They would effect a complete revo- 
lution in all our social, pohtical, and industrial 
interests and institutions. The most advanced 
women of this school renounce all creeds, are 
ready to pull down all churches, and ''rejoice 
that an age of religion has given way to the age 
of free inquiry." The marriage relation with 
its necessary ties and duties, is a burden to 
these free and independent women. " The 
whole theory of the common law," they say, 
" in relation to the married woman, is unjust 
and degrading," and discuss such questions as 
" What are the natural relations of one sex to 
the other? Is marriage the highest and purest 
form of these relations ? What are the moral 
effects of marriage upon man and wife t Is 
marriage a holy state ?" etc. The answer to 
all these questions is intended to imply that 



190 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



marriage is a degradation and servitude to 
woman. 

• While many of the questions of "woman's 
rights," which are rife in our country, are 
wholly unknown in Europe, it is a singular fact 
that in this last phase of the agitation— the 
right of female suffrage — it would be hard to 
determine whether England or America is en- 
titled to precedence, either with regard to time 
or the earnestness with which the demand is 
made. In England the demand grew out of 
the agitation in behalf of enlargement of the 
franchise to Englishmen, some leading politi- 
cians and some talented women soon suggesting 
the question — Why not also embrace certain 
classes of women in this enlarged enfranchise- 
ment ? Its chief representative among English 
statesmen is J. Stuart Mill, who is also the 
advocate for the enfranchisement of all En- 
glish freeholders and householders. In our 
country the demand arose amid the discussions 
of the enfranchisement of the freedmen through- 
out the South ; and the proposed extension of 
the right of suffrage to the colored men of the 
North. In England, Frances Power Cobb, 
Lydia Becker, and other talented women, have 



POLITICAL RELATIONS OF WOMEN. T9I 



become the champions of the cause through the 
power of their graceful pens. In our country the 
school of Lucretia Mott, Lucy Stone, Elizabeth 
Cowles, and Elizabeth Stanton, and still more 
recklessly and intensely than either of these, 
Victoria Woodhull, and her party, have taken 
the lead, sometimes with the pen, but more fre- 
quently on the stump and forum. In both 
countries the right and expediency of the 
measure are advocated by some of the leading 
journals and dignified and serious reviews. 

The demand presents different phases in the 
two countries. With us it is simply the ques- 
tion of universal suffrage ; in England, as is 
the case with all suffrage, the question is par- 
tial, and proposes to extend the suffrage to cer- 
tain classes of women, possessed of a certain 
amount of property in their own right, and hav- 
ing no proper male representative. Leaving 
the English to take care of the subject as it 
presents itself among them, we propose to 
glance at the question as it is agitated among us. 

Here, where scarcely any limitations are 
placed on the exercise of the franchise when it 
is once granted to a certain class, that is, where 
no property qualification, or, in most places, 



192 



THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



even any measure of intellectual qualification, 
is required of the voter, it is the simple ques- 
tion, Shall the right of suffrage be extended to 
all American women of proper age ? or, in 
other words, shall we strike the word 7nale out 
of our National and State Constitutions ? In 
this broad meaning it is at least American : 
limited, it would be inconsistent with the genius 
of American institutions. With this broad sig- 
nificance, then, it does not mean to extend the 
right of suffrage to a certain class of intelligent, 
refined, virtuous American women, but shall 
we open the polls to all classes of American 
women, native-born and naturahzed, the intelli- 
gent and the ignorant, the refined and the de- 
graded, the virtuous and the debased ? As 
voting implies electing, and we can not say to 
the enfranchised elector you may vote, but it 
must only be for candidates of our nomination, 
the question in its full meaning implies also the 
election of females to an}^ and all offices. 
Hence the question of Woman's Suffrage" is 
in itself not merely a question of so many more 
votes thrown into the ballot-box, but is the 
vital question of the social and political rela- 
tions of women. 



POLITICAL RELATIONS OF WOMEN. 1 93 

To this question we can not but vote a de- 
cided negative, and proceed to give our reasons. 
And, first, we do not for a moment suppose that 
the women of our country, taken as a whole, 
are not quite as competent to exercise the poht- 
ical function of voting as the men, and we freely 
concede that multitudes of our women are in- 
comparably more fitted for it than multitudes of 
men to whom our democratic liberality has ex- 
tended the franchise. Nor do we suppose that 
if admitted to the suffrage they would revolu- 
tionize the State, or greatly modify any of our 
political institutions, or that we would be any 
worse governed then than at present. Quite 
possibly some things might be made better by 
feminine participation and influence. And yet 
it would be a complete revolution of society ; 
it would completely change the status of woman, 
and, by consequence, that of man also. Woman 
may possibly assert her right to be a man, but 
hardly, we think, to be a man and w^oman too. 
If she gains the one, she must inevitably, to a 
greater or less extent, lose the other. If she 
ceases to be the home companion, the friend, 
the confident, the co-worker of man in the 
privacies and affections of domestic life, and 
13 



194 ^-^-^ RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 

becomes his rival and competitor in public 
strife, man c^n do nothing less than recognize 
and treat her as such. If it be said the woman 
would not become the rival and competitor of 
the man in these new political relations, but his 
companion and co-worker, then the demand is 
not for free and untrammeled suffrage, but for the 
right to vote according to the opinions and 
wishes of her husband or male relatives, and it 
means nothing. In this sense she is already 
fully represented in her desires and opinions 
by the voice of her male representatives. 
Of course the demand means that she shall 
think and vote as she pleases ; that she may 
stand at the samxC election polls and nullify the 
vote of husband, father, or brother ; that she 
may place herself in nomination for any office ; 
that she may meet in clubs, publish journals, 
advocate or denounce measures according to 
her own opinions, and use all ordinary political 
methods to carry her points, whether they may 
be in opposition to or accord with the views and 
wishes of her male relatives. If it does not 
mean this it is not worth contending for. It is 
possible that her views and opinions may be 
nearer right than those of her male friends : 



POLITICAL RELATIONS OF WOMEN. 1 95 

but who can suppose that antagonism of poht- 
ical view and action could long exist without 
completely revolutionizing the social relations 
of the sexes as they now exist ? To suppose 
that these oppositions and antagonisms would 
not arise, is to suppose that female suffrage is 
to be a mere nominal thing without force or 
meaning; and to suppose that these antago- 
nisms could exist without destroying the peace 
and harmony of our domestic relations, is to be 
ignorant of the delicate and sensitive nature of 
these relations, and of the strength, and vio- 
lence even, of political prejudices and passions. 

But this revolution of society is exactly the 
thing avowedly aimed at by many of the male 
and female leaders of the agitation. "It is," 
say they, " the first great step toward the eman- 
cipation of woman;" "it is the first step to- 
ward her deliverance from the degradation of 
all past history." "The right of suffrage will be 
to woman what the right of suffrage is to the 
freedmen of the South, their defense against 
oppression, and the instrument of independent 
self-protection." " It is the assertion and vin- 
dication of the entire equality of women with 
men, and we demand that the word male be 



196 THE RELIGION OF THE FA MIL Y. 



Struck out of all State Constitutions, and that 
females be admitted to every right, privilege, 
and responsibility now enjoyed by men." Such 
demands, of course, imply a complete revolution 
in all social, political, and industrial interests 
and institutions — revolution, we mean, in the 
sense of radical reconstruction. 

But what would be the effect of this recon- 
struction on society ? To us it seems the result 
would be evil, and only evil, and that contin- 
ually. Its worst effects would fall on woman 
herself, and as woman is pre-eminently the con- 
servator of our social life, so long as she occu- 
pies her true position and exercises her true 
womanly influence, when she passes out of that 
position and loses that influence, all society 
must suffer. When she ceases to be a woman 
and becomes only another man, she of course 
resigns her womanly position and influence. 
To lift her out of her position as the loving and 
beloved queen of -home and priestess of all the 
charities and felicities of our domestic life, into 
that of a political thinker, schemer, debater, 
and agitator, would be as ruinous to society as 
is her degradation in heathen countries into a 
mere plaything or servant. 



POLITICAL RELATIONS OF WOMEN. 1 97 

None rejoice more than we in the exaltation 
of women, in their emancipation from the 
wrongs inherited from pagan forms of society, 
and their assumption of their true place of dig- 
nity, equahty, and power in our social life. The 
idea of a hard line of separation between man 
and woman has passed away. In our day 
women and men are really companions ; the 
home has acquired the ascendency ; the women 
of the family are the man's chosen society ; the 
wife is his chief associate, his most confidential 
friend, and often his most trusted counselor. 
This is the true human hfe, and for it we are 
pre-eminently indebted to that Christianity 
which so admirably defines and limits the true 
relations of the sexes, but which is so generally 
discarded by the reforming women of America. 
Can women afford to give up this position of 
special and peculiar associate, friend, and coun- 
selor, for that of a mere equal or competitor of 
man in the strifes, agitations, prejudices, pas- 
sions, and places of political life ? Can she 
enter into the political arena and not lose her 
position of home ascendency, of the loved and 
loving confident and friend? Can she mingle 
with the undignified turmoil of a contested elec- 



198 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY, 



tion, and in the discreditable scenes that too 
often disgrace the polls, and return unscathed in 
her womanly delicacy, refinement, and modesty, 
to preside as the chaste and unsulHed priestess 
of the sanctities of home ? And can society 
exchange the quiet but all-pervading and all- 
powerful influence of retired, refined, modest 
womanhood, for the masculine boldness, for- 
wardness, and coarseness of political women, 
without suffering a demorahzation of which we 
can not now perhaps imagine? 

Ambition, pride, willfulness, or any earthly 
passion will distort the true woman. Woman's 
worst enemy is he who would cruelly lift her 
out of her true womanly character and work, 
and would try to reverse the laws of God and 
of nature in her behalf They deceive women 
who cause them to believe that they will find 
independence when they abandon the posi- 
tions assigned them by their Creator, and reach 
one against which their nature, and the inter- 
ests of society, and the laws of God contend. 
In spite of all the sneers and scorn that cer- 
tain writers throw upon the w^ord, women have 
their sphere and work, just as all God's creat- 
ures have their appropriate places and offices. 



POLITICAL RELATIONS OF WOMEN. 1 99 

Woman is not the natural head of society. 
Man, rough, stern, cold, and almost nerveless, 
is made to be the head of human society ; and 
woman, quick, sensitive, pliant, gentle, loving, 
is the heart of the world. As the heart she has 
power. She rules through love, and becomes a 
blessing, greater than we can ever acknowledge, 
because it is greater than we can measure. 
Society can not afford to lose out of it this 
powerful influence and work, and it is utterly 
impossible for women to supply in any other 
way a compensation for the loss of their own 
womanly character and oflice. 

We believe this demand for enlarged political 
opportunities is made on mistaken views of 
social relations, and especially of the relations 
of the sexes. The great pendulum of popular 
opinion is perpetually swinging to extremes. 
The awakened thought of modern society finds 
woman isolated, separated from man, the in- 
strument of his pleasure or the subject of his 
oppressions, and in the heat of reformation 
would hurry her on out of all womanly character, 
and into spheres for which Nature no more in- 
tended her than she intended man to be a 
woman. From the reformation of certain 



200 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



wrongs, the agitation passes on to the demand 
of certain imaginary rights. From the discus- 
sion of certain abuses the debate merges into 
the claim of intellectual, physical, and political 
equality of the sexes. For the abolition of 
every species of wrong or injustice toward 
women we heartily labor and pra}^ ; but some 
of these imaginary rights we as heartily den}^, 
among which is the right of any woman to lose 
her loveliness, modesty, gentleness, and wom- 
anliness. We deny the right of woman to 
leave the queenly place in Christian society to 
which the Creator assigned her, and for which 
her true nature fits her, to usurjD spheres of 
action in which she would inevitably lose the 
last remnants of that grace which distinguishes 
her from the opposite sex. 

We have but little patience with the whole 
question of the comparative abilities of the two 
sexes. They are incomparable subjects. There 
is no such thing as equalit}^, inferiority, or su- 
periority. They are two different beings ; they 
have two different spheres of action and duty 
which blend and harmonize in the highest and 
holiest purposes of human society. Nature 
has decreed that woman shall be the eternal 



POLITICAL RELATIONS OF WOMEN, 201 



contrast of man, that man may be charmed by 
the contrast, attracted by his curiosity, and in- 
stigated by his desires." Woman is pre-emi- 
nent in her own nature and sphere, adapted 
to duties which it is impossible for man to per- 
form. Man is pre-eminent in his nature and 
sphere, made for positions and services which 
it is impossible for woman to fill. Both together 
make the perfect human being, and by blending 
their various natures and capabilities they create, 
develop, and perpetuate human society, and 
" these two are one^ 

It is on this unity that we would base repre- 
sentation and government. Government is not 
for the individual, but for society — and the unit 
in society is not the individual, but the family. 
That unit is represented always and every-where 
in our Government, when the husband and the 
father utters the voice of the family at the polls 
and in the councils of the nation. We agree 
with the eminent Frenchman, who has been a life- 
long advocate of the emancipation of woman," 
but who, on the very last day of his life, rejoiced 
in the action of the National Assembly closing 
the door of the clubs against women. For 
some time to come," says Leon Gozlan, ^'it will 



202 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



be yet a good thing that there are two sexes ; at a 
later time we shall see. Till then let us respect 
customs and traditions, and among them the 
custom that demands that women shall preside 
at home, give birth to children, and endure the 
annoyance of bringing them up." 

But it is exceedingly questionable whether 
there is any real substantial benefit to accrue to 
women, from forsaking the department of life 
for w^hich they are pre-eminently qualified, for 
a sphere of pubhc or pohtical action. What 
disability of women can be removed by the 
elective franchise 1 Ballots have no influence 
on physiology, nor can the franchise change the 
great laws of nature and of society. Women 
will be women still, with whatever disabilities, 
as women, now attach to them, yet adhering to 
them though they hold a ballot in their hands. 
It is supposed by many that woman as a voter 
could demand better compensation for her 
labor, and could become a more independent 
com.petitor for place and remuneration. It is 
not disputed that many women, depending upon 
their own resources for subsistence, are unable 
to earn a comfortable support. But how is the 
ballot to remedy this ? No one has yet told us 



POLITICAL RELATIONS OF WOMEN. 203 



what laws or what public policy would remedy 
this evil. Wages can not be settled by law. 
Employers will do the best they can in securing 
the most and the best skilled labor for the least 
wages. And this is not their fault, but their 
necessity ; a necessity forced upon them by the 
inevitable competitions and rivalries of trade. 
If any measure of justice and propriety can be 
proposed by any class, by which their condition 
can be ameliorated, it is at once the interest, as 
well as the prevailing disposition of legislators 
in our day, to adopt it. And we may be per- 
fectly sure, that if such measures of relief were 
proposed by women in any state, a large major- 
ity of men would sustain it, and legislatures 
would pass it ; for any law which would be good 
for men's mothers, sisters, wives, and daughters 
would not be likely to be opposed by men. 

And here lies a very general fallacy, which 
looks upon women as a class represented or op- 
pressed by men. But masculine voters and law- 
makers are not a class distinct from women ; 
they are the husbands, sons, fathers, and broth- 
ers of the women they represent. The case is 
vastly different when one class of people op- 
presses another, and withholds the ballot in 



2 04 '^HE RELIGIOX OF THE FAMILY. 



order to render the oppressed helpless, and re- 
dress impossible. Surely there can be no sin- 
cerity in the charge sometimes made, that these 
husbands, fathers, sons, and brothers are inten- 
tional oppressors of their wives and mothers, 
their sisters and their daughters I There may 
be yet on the statute books some laws which 
bear needlessly heavy on women ia certain 
cases. But it is equally true that in many of 
the cases which are adduced as instances of un- 
equal laws, the laws themselves have been for 
many years mere dead letters on the statute 
book. It must be remembered, too, that so- 
ciety as a whole, of both men and women, is only 
gradually rising out of a civilization which ad- 
mitted of many injustices to the masses of the 
people, and that modern legislation is as rapidly 
as possible eliminating these wrongs and oppres- 
sions out of human laws and institutions. 

There is another supposed benefit to accrue 
from placing the ballot in the hands of women, 
and giving tb.em official and law-making power, 
which is exceedingly doubtful. It is that women 
as voters and law-makers will aid immensely 
in the work of general reforms. But, it is nec- 
essary, just here, to ask what is meant by 



POLITICAL RELATIONS OF WOMEN. 205 

women f It is not proposed to open this polit- 
ical life only to the refined, educated, virtuous 
women of the land, but to all women, and to all 
classes of women. Is it, then, quite certain that 
the final aggregate of the votes of all the 
women in the land would be on the side of re- 
form ? Are not multitudes of women leading 
lives of vice and sin ? Are not multitudes of 
women conducting immoral trades and branches 
of business ? Are not still greater multitudes 
of women implicated in immoral business 
through their husbands ? How would all these 
vote and legislate ? Let us take the temperance 
reform as an illustration. Temperate, refined, 
intelligent women, we will say, would be on the 
side of temperance. But let us sum up the 
other side. There are multitudes of bad women, 
the vicious and abandoned, numbering thou- 
sands in every city, who would cast their vote 
and their whole power against temperance laws. 
There are multitudes of women making their 
livelihood out of dram-shops and beer-saloons. 
There are women carrying on distilleries, thea- 
ters, circuses, etc. There are thousands of 
women whose husbands are making for them 
homes and fortunes by manufacturing or sell- 



• 206 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 

ing liquors. There are tliousands of wives of 
drinking men, who could only vote against in- 
temperance at the peril of all home peace ; 
and there are, then, thousands of fashionable 
women, fond of their wines, and still more fond 
of the display of wines and liquors, who would 
not favor stringent temperance laws. We may 
be sure, too, that these classes of opposers would 
be the more active, noisy, and energetic in the 
contest. Is it not, then, exceedingly doubtful 
on which side the majority would fall ? 

But, says the persistent advocate of enfran- 
chisement, will not the good element among 
women — the wives and daughters of good men — 
equal in number, and more than equal in moral 
force, the vicious and ignorant ? In numbers, 
no ; in moral force we will grant them the pre- 
ponderance. But where should this force be ex- 
ercised — where most profitably used ? Should 
we array it in conflict wnth their sisters at the 
polls, whei'e they would meet as equals., or in 
the charities of life, where a diversion might be 
created, and where their superior influence could 
be brought to bear against vice, at the living 
fount, w^ithout weakening the political power by 
which it must be restrained ? It may be con- 



POLITICAL RELATIONS OF WOMEN. 207 

tended that in numbers, also, they would hold 
the balance, and thus be able to do a double 
duty, namely, to teach reform and enforce the 
lesson. We will not stop to take a census ; 
but, admitting for a moment the correctness of 
the claim, how long would it be before the tables 
would be turned ? To one birth among the 
active promoters of woman's rights, and the 
class to which we should look for an intel- 
ligent and independent exercise of suffrage, we 
have five among the sons and daughters of toil, 
confining the remark to that portion who never 
will raise themselves above the dependent 
hireling and scavenger." And this proportion, 
according to present appearances, will go on in- 
creasing. Fashionable life and leisure, as now 
practiced, is opposed to maternity. The dev- 
otees have no time to waste in the nursery. 
They rehnquish the pains and pleasures of rear- 
ing families to their more hardy and needy sis- 
ters, and thus, by enforcing poverty, making it 
almost impossible to bring up the progeny of 
such parents in the full light of Christian ex- 
ample and its humanizing influences. 

By doubling the franchise in each family, we 
thereby — if our reasoning is correct — double the 



208 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



political power of the most doubtful class in so- 
ciety — increase the reformatory labor largely ; 
while we lessen, by comparison of numbers, the 
means of introducing those wholesome reforms 
upon which the future of families, of society, of 
governments, of country, so largely depend. It 
may be a triumph of the right in the estimation 
of the advocates of enfranchisement, to endow 
one high-minded, noble and strong woman with 
the right of voting; but where the process that 
does this confers the same "right" on half a 
dozen weak-minded and ignoble sisters, it is not 
difficult to strike a balance between " expedi- 
ency " and its opposite. 

But there is another powerful objection to the 
dewomanizing of women. It is the influence 
that the process must inevitably have on men. 
The mere question of women's voting, in itself 
considered, is not a very grave one. It would 
not amount to much in society, one way or the 
other, that so many more ballots were placed 
in the ballot-box. But, as we have seen, the 
"woman movement" means infinitely more 
than this ; it means that, as far as she can, she 
shall exercise the capacities, occupy the places, 
do the works, and possess the independence, 



POLITICAL RELATIONS OF WOMEN. 20g 

that have hitherto been the prerogatives of 
men ; in short, that she shall no longer be a 
woman, in any sense that implies weakness or 
dependence. She will seek her ow^n ways, as- 
sert her own individuality, and use all possible 
means to become in every way independent of 
men. Now, we are not of those that beheve 
women were made for men, one whit more than 
men were made for women ; but we do believe 
that they were made for each other, and that the 
true nature and character of the one is an es- 
sential need of the other. We have said enough 
of the degradation of woman, when she shall 
cease to be a woman in every true sense of 
the word ; our present thought is that it 
equally involves the degradation of man. Man 
needs the woman, the real womanly woman, as 
much as the weaker and more dependent woman 
needs the man. We mean that man exactly 
needs the dependmt woman, the woman to live 
for, to work for, to make a home for. It is the 
dependence of the wife and children that is the 
inspiration of the husband and father. Take 
this away, and from the vast majority of men 
you have removed the most powerful motive 
that gives activity to their life. To make a 
U 



2IO THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



home, to bring a wife of his love into it, to care 
for her and his children, to amass a fortmie for 
them, to provide for their safety and welfare 
after his death, these are the purest, the mighti- 
est, the most sacred of the inspirations of men. 
Take away from them this office of provider, of 
maker and guardian of home, or take from them 
this motive of the dependence of wife and 
children, and it is impossible to measure the ex- 
tent of their degeneration. Aside from the in- 
fluences of the Spirit of God himself, there are 
no influences to restrain men, to keep them 
temperate, pure, industrious, equal to that pow- 
erful feeling that a loving, pure, dependent 
woman is clinging to him and his manly labors 
for her happiness and need. The world can 
not afford to exchange this powerful and sacred 
influence which has been working in all the past, 
coming, if you please, from the very gentleness, 
weakness, and dependence of women, for any 
imaginary benefits that might possibly accrue 
from woman's apostasy from her own place, to 
assume one for which she was never intended. 
We can not resist the temptation to close this 
chapter with the following beautiful and true 
words from the pen of Charles Kingsley : 



POLITICAL RELATIONS OF WOMEN. 211 



" I should have thought that the very mission 
of woman was to be, in the highest sense, the 
educator of man from infancy to old age ; that 
that was the work toward which all the God- 
given capacities of woman pointed, for which 
they were to be educated in the highest pitch. 
I should have thought that it was the glory of 
woman, that she was sent into the world to live 
for others, rather than for herself ; and there- 
fore I should say, let her smallest rights be re- 
spected, her smallest wrongs be redressed ; 
but let her never be persuaded to forget that 
she is sent into the world to teach man, what 
I believe she has been teaching him all along, 
even in the savage state, namely, that there is 
something more necessary than the claiming of 
rights, and that is, the performing of duties ; 
to teach him especially, in these so-called intel- 
lectual days, that there is something more than 
intellect, and that is — purity and virtue. Let 
her never be persuaded to forget that her call- 
ing is not the lower and more earthly one of 
self-assertion, but the higher and diviner call- 
ing of self-sacrifice, and let her never desert 
that higher life, which lives in others and for 
others, hke her Redeemer and Lord. 



212 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



"And, if any should answer, that this doc- 
trine would keep a woman a dependent and a 
slave, I answer not so ; it would keep her what 
she should be — the mistress of all around her, 
because mistress of herself. And more, I 
should express a fear that those who made that 
answer had not yet seen into the mystery of 
true greatness and true strength ; that th-ey did 
not yet understand the true magnanimity, the 
true royalty of that spirit, by which the Son of 
Man came not to be ministered unto, but to min- 
ister, and to give his life a ransom for many. 

" Surely that is woman's calling — to teach 
man ; and to teach him what ! To teach him, 
after all, that his calling is the same as hers, if 
he will but see the things which belong to his 
peace. To temper his fiercer, coarser, more self- 
assertive nature, by the contact of her gentleness, 
purity, self-sacrifice. To make him see that not 
by blare of trumpets, not by noise, wrath, greed, 
ambition, intrigue, puifery, is good and lasting 
work to be done on earth, but by wise self- 
distrust, by silent labor, by lofty self-control, 
by the charity which helpeth all things ; by 
such an example, in short, as woman now in 
tens of thousands set to those around them; 



POLITICAL RELATIONS OF WOMEN. 213 

such as they will show more and more, the 
more their whole womanhood is educated to 
employ its powers without haste in harmonious 
unity." 



XI. 



WHAT CAN WOMEN DO? 



|HE advancing thought and activity of 
the world are thrusting upon society 
many serious questions with which 



former ages were but Httle disturbed. Among 
these questions, by no means the least import- 
ant or least urgent, are questions relating to the 
welfare and necessities of w^omen. At one time, 
and in many countries, the wdiole question of 
woman's necessities was speedily disposed of, by 
assigning her a position far inferior and subordi- 
nate to that of man, and her destiny w^as accepted 
as a mere helpmate for her mascuhne lord and 
master. The rights of woman's property raised 
no question, for it was scarcely possible for her 
to become a proprietor. Her education was 
totally neglected, both because it was supposed 
she was incapable of any considerable degree 
of mental culture, and because no education 
was needed for the inferior and menial position 
214 



WHA T CAN WOMEN DO? 2x5 



she occupied. The means by which she might 
reach social independence and self-maintenance 
were never thought of, as the idea itself was 
supposed to be preposterous. By nature and 
destiny she was a dependent being, to be pro- 
vided for by her husband, whom it was her 
duty very largely to assist in the maintenance 
of the family, and after his death, if preceding 
her own, still to be dependent on other male 
relatives. 

These views and arrangements prevailed 
into a very advanced state of civilization, and 
even yet but a small portion of the world has 
outgrown them. The influence of Christianity, 
in its perhaps slow but sure progress, has been 
gradually dissolving these notions inherited 
from pagan barbarism, or, if you please, pagan 
civihzation. Much as some of the most ad- 
vanced advocates of woman's interests con- 
temn the Bible, and feel aggrieved by the 
wholesome limitations of Christianity, every 
reader of history knows the only stream of 
light in behalf of woman which has been flow- 
ing down through the ages, is that which has 
been issuing from the Word of God; and that 
the only reh'gion of the world that has ennobled 



2 1 6 THE RELIGION OF THE FA MIL Y. 



woman and given her a recognition as equal in 
sublime destiny with man, is the religion of the 
New Testament. The women of the Old Test- 
ament, too, long before the name of woman 
was doubly sanctified by the ministries of 
Christ in the homes of the Marys and Marthas 
of the Gospel, were immeasurably elevated 
above their sisters in all the surrounding na- 
tions. 

Christianity, if it does not originate, certainly 
disseminates and enforces in the world the doc- 
trine of the moral equality of men and women 
in the sight of God, and assigns to both alike a 
destiny full of responsibililies and capable of 
momentous results. As the world apprehended 
this Christian thought, the sexes began more 
nearly to approach each other ; the marriage 
relation became more sacred and indissoluble ; 
the relation of wife and mother became more 
significant and responsible ; the mental and 
moral necessities of woman became more 
obvious and imperative ; her individuality was 
more clearly recognized ; her rights and claims 
upon society more clearly defined ; and, conse- 
quent upon all these, the necessity of larger 
opportunities and of better means by which she 



IVHA T CAN WOMEN DO? 2 1 7 

might be prepared for the responsibihties and 
rights of her new position, was more clearly 
discerned. The doors of education were opened 
to women, and education means learning to 
think. Woman began to think for herself and 
in behalf of herself, and repelling with indigna- 
tion the wrongs of the past, she began to assert 
the rights of h&r new position, and in the heat 
of debate conceived a still more independent 
position for herself, in which she should be ab- 
solutely the participator with man in all the 
duties and responsibilities, emoluments and 
honors of domestic, social, and political life. 

In the mean time the same advancing civiliza- 
tion has developed a new phase of social Hfe, 
in which the wars, the ambitions, the wild ad- 
ventures, the schemes of conquest, and the 
chivalry of the past, have been supplanted by 
intense devotion to the industries of life. Trade, 
manufactures, commerce, literature, all aiming 
at wealth and independence as the ideal of 
earthly success, crowd and intensify the life of 
to-day. While so many are intensely strug- 
gling after wealth, and the great ideal of life 
with multitudes is to accumulate vast fortunes, 
and to live in a style commensurate with their 



2l8 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



fortunes, multitudes more are driven, by the 
very force of this battle for wealth, face to face 
with the stern question of how to live at all. 
Among these latter multitudes are many women 
on whom is laid the necessity of providing for 
themselves. The same intense desire for 
wealth and independence has also seized many 
women whom no necessity would drive into the 
marts of trade and industry, but who would 
enter them of choice. They assert their right 
to enter the lists with men ; they claim equal 
ability for all the ordinary avocations, and de- 
mand that all distinctions and limitations be 
cast aside, and that the doors be opened to 
women to every employment and responsibility 
hitherto usurped by men. 

Hence the question heading this chapter — 
what can women do ? — becomes a complex one, 
not only involving her mental and- physical ca- 
pabilities, but her relations to society ; not only 
what she is able to do, but what in society as it 
is she may do, and what in the assertion of her 
own rights she demands to be permitted to do. 
This last part of the question we can shortly 
dispose of by saying that the most advanced of 
her representatives demand for her '^a perfect 



WHAT CAN WOMEN DO? 



219 



equalization for all purposes whatever, not dis- 
tinctly precluded by physiological differences of 
the male and the female portions of the race." 
With regard to this demand we have only now 
to say, that if fully stated and defined it may 
not be far from the true statement of the case, 
for it contains within itself a limitation that 
it will take a long time to settle, and which, in 
despite of all human demands and legislation, 
will assert itself through all time as an effectual 
bar to " the perfect equalization of the sexes for 
all purposes whatever. Without concerning 
ourselves at present with this comprehensive 
demand in behalf of woman, we turn to the 
other sides of this question which are more im- 
mediately practical and urgent. 

On multitudes of women modern society 
itself, by its constitution and methods, has 
thrust the question — what can we do ? Many 
women are obliged to provide for themselves, 
and often, too, for others dependent upon them. 
Multitudes of women are left in widowhood 
with children dependent on them ; thousands 
of young girls either in orphanage, or with par- 
ents who are struggling to ''keep the wolf from 
the door," must maintain themselves, or assist 



22 O THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



in bringing bread to tlie household ; many more 
either voluntarily or involuntarily do not marry, 
and must look for the means of self-support. 
Perhaps one-third of the women of this coun- 
try are under the stern necessity of supporting 
themselves by their own exertions. How few 
are the opportunities that society affords them 
for gaining this support is obvious to all. Some 
are driven to the necessity of leaving their young 
children day by day, and going out to labor in 
order to bring them bread at night; others sew 
away their strength for the pittance which 
barely keeps famine from their doors; a small 
proportion compared with the whole multitude 
are found clerking in dry-goods stores, conduct- 
mg fancy stores of their own, and in teaching ; 
various branches of manufacturing give employ- 
ment to many more, and domestic service gives 
a support to others, very few, however, of our 
own countrywomen. It is sad enough for the fe- 
male to be left in this state of self-dependence ; 
but society renders it still more sad and vastly 
more dangerous, by hmiting her to so few 
spheres of action, and most of these of a menial 
character. This arrangement is a vast injustice 
and wrong to women. In some of its features 



WHA T CA N WOMEN DO? 2 21 

it is a vast meanness on the part of men ; 
while in many instances base men, taking ad- 
vantage of these stern necessities, convert the 
whole system into one of downright wickedness 
and rascality. 

We believe the highest and holiest work for 
woman is that which she accomplishes in the 
relation of wife and mother; but this rela- 
tion is not always subject to her own choice, 
nor do we believe that society should thrust this 
necessity upon her. It can not be otherwise 
than a degradation to woman, and for that mat- 
ter to the whole married relation, that marriage 
should so much wear the aspect of an ultima- 
tum for woman, and that so many females 
should be compelled to contemplate it only as 
the most feasible and respectable means of ob- 
taining a living. The opportunities of inde- 
pendent self-support for woman should be such 
as to leave it a matter of choice with her, 
whether to enter, from high and proper mo- 
tives, the married relation, or to pursue a life 
of singleness and self-maintenance. We would 
remove from woman all necessity of marriage 
which springs from a mere sense of depend- 
ence, or from fears of future want, or of inabil- 



2 2 2 THE RELIGION OF THE FA MIL Y. 



ity independently to provide for herself. There 
would be left to her the deeper and holier in- 
stincts of her own nature, which are God's guar- 
antee for the future of the race, while her lib- 
erty of choice would ennoble both her and the 
relation into which she would voluntarily enter. 
This would remove all thought of degradation, 
inferiority, or dependence ; would make both 
parties equals in the married relation ; would 
make man more than ever a solicitor of her 
hand, and more than ever considerate of the 
welfare and happiness of her who had no other 
necessity or motive for becoming his compan- 
ion than her love and choice. It would secure 
to woman exactly that independence which would 
enable her to take more time and larger obser- 
vation in making her choice, and which would 
save her from the danger and temptation of 
hasty marriage, for fear of being left for life un- 
der the disabilities which now press upon un- 
married women. 

While we thus believe that woman should be 
placed in such relations to society as to leave 
her entirely free to choose whether to marry or 
not — and so far we heartily agree with the "re- 
formers " — when they would extend this free- 



WHAT CAN WOMEN DO? 



223 



dom within the marriage compact itself, and de- 
mand that the parlies shall still be free, on a 
thousand excuses, to annul the compact and 
separate, we wholly and uncompromisingly dis- 
sent. Let society remove the disadvantages of 
woman as far as possible ; let it give her oppor- 
tunities of self-maintenance ; let both parties 
be free to marry or not to marry, without either 
accepting it as a destiny or being driven to it 
by fear of want, and then let society demand, 
for its own welfare and protection, that the com- 
pact shall be indissoluble except only for the 
disloyalty of one of the parties. 

We would thus, first of all, demand for 
woman enlarged opportunities for self-support, 
that she may occupy a position of greater inde- 
pendence in relation to the question whether 
she will assume the duties, responsibilities, and 
burdens of marriage — not to speak of its joys 
and blessings — or bear the burdens of life alone. 
But with multitudes there can be no choice. 
They must remain single. They must support 
themselves. There will be widows with depend- 
ent families, and there will be households in 
which the females of the family must assist in 
the support. The question is not one merely 



2 24 RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



of social improvement, but of social necessity. 
The demand for enlarged fields of female activ- 
ity is not only the cry of a few "reforming 
women," it is the almost despairing cry of 
struggling thousands, who live on the verge of 
want, and many of them consequently on the 
verge of crime. 

The question — what can woman do? — has 
limitations on two sides : first, the limitations 
of her own nature, and, secondly, the limitations 
of social sentiment. Ought not these limita- 
tions be brought to one side only ? and should 
not social sentiment conform itself to the prop- 
osition, that woman should be allowed to do 
whatever she is capable of doing? Is she not 
debarred from many avocations for no other 
reason than custom or prejudice? Are there 
not many pursuits now monopoHzed by men that 
could be followed as well by women ; and are 
there not many things now done by men that 
could be better done by women ? Let mere cus* 
tom and prejudice step aside and give place to 
the simple question. What is woman capable of 
doing? and she must answer this question for 
herself She must do it in the struggle and 
competition of life. The data from the past and 



WHAT CAN WOMEN DO? 225 

present of woman's history are insufficient for a 
present answer. It must be determined by- 
competition and experiment. The duty of 
woman will then be, in the spirit of Rosa Bon- 
heur, not to demand certain rights, but to assert 
them by proving her ability to use and hold them. 

Just here we quote and adopt the following 
earnest and true words from the pen of one of 
the clearest female thinkers and writers the 
present agitation has produced : 

" Women can not truly succeed in their great 
work of self-emancipation, if they put them- 
selves in seeming antagonism to men. They 
may get their rights, they probably will ; but 
they destroy the fine relation which should exist 
between them and men, unless both work to- 
gether for the same end. Man is all ready to 
serve woman, and to take up her interests as 
much as in the Knight-errantry times of old ; 
but woman must use a wise policy in her deal- 
ings with him, in order that his service may be 
glad and spontaneous, and that his prejudices 
against a change of existing customs may melt 
away insensibly before the eloquence and power 
of her life. 

"The first fact which women should justly 
15 



22 6 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



convince man of is this : that they can do a 
great many things which he can not do. How do 
they show him this ? By courting his praise 
and flattery, or by laudation of their sex and 
boasted independence ? No ; but by their 
daily life ; by their power to govern a house- 
hold, which is often sublime ; by their wisdom 
with children, their clever economies, their 
domestic graces. In these, and many other 
ways, they show their dominion over realms 
which man can not enter, except as a subject. 
Men see this spectacle of women, at their post 
of duty, all over the Christian w^orld ; and in 
their calm hours they bow before it. 

^'The next fact which they should recognize 
with men is this : that there are many things 
that men do, which the majority of women can 
not do, or ought not to do. Coarse out-of-door 
employments seem not to be for them, nor ex- 
posures on land or sea, nor the severest labors 
of the surgeon, the management of animals, the 
command of vessels, the lading of merchandise, 
and the heavy mechanical arts. 

^' It is so evident to our senses that w^omen 
are molded on a diiTerent plan from men, that 
we must feel that any prolonged physical labor. 



WHAT CAN WOMEN DO? 227 



which has a tendency to brutalize those finer 
nervous powers in her, will also threaten to 
destroy the distinctive qualities of her soul 
which respond to the higher wants of man. 
Similarity of pursuit, in many cases, will only 
produce variety in the working and better self- 
development ; but in the departments of labor 
which we refer to, and many others, we feel that 
more is lost than gained. Of course, there are 
exceptions to all these cases ; but they do not 
alter the general rule." * 

If this enlarged field of action were opened to 
woman, we believe the limitations to her capa- 
bility would be only physical, or rather, per- 
haps, physiological. Mentally, she would prob- 
ably be found to be an equal competitor with 
man in most of the avocations of life. For it 
is a gross and false piece of reasoning to infer 
a permanent intellectual inferiority of woman, 
because past social habits and incomplete edu- 
cation have given hitherto certain advantages to 
men. Give her equal opportunities for mental 
culture, and the stimulus of broad fields of 
mental activity, and she would doubtless be 
found capable of any employment and responsi- 

* ]\Irs. Martha Perry Lowe. 



228 



THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 



bility, the qualifications for wliicli are intelli- 
gence, acuteness, quickness, good taste, and 
good sense. For clerkships, for book-keepers, 
for teachers, for writers, for conductors of many 
branches of business, they would be the equals 
of men, and in some kinds of business doubt- 
less their superiors. In literature and in some 
of the fine arts they are already vindicating 
their claim to recognition. 

But in this effort at independence and self- 
support woman's real and permanent disabilities 
-would be physiological, by which we mean 
that she is a woman ; and no laws, no social 
habits, no opportunities, could transform her 
womanly nature ; could change the essential 
elements of her constitution, by which the Cre- 
ator fitted her to be not a competitor, but a 
helpmeet for man, and " the mother of all liv- 
ing." Her glory in her true nature and mission 
is her disability when circumstances lead her 
from this true destiny, and either voluntarily or 
involuntarily she becomes self-dependent and a 
competitor in the struggle for life. Physically 
she is weaker ; physiologically she is more deli- 
cately constituted, and in her womanly nature 
she is more gentle, modest, sensitive than man ; 



WHAT CAN WOMEN DO? 229 



and some of these she can not change, and 
others she has no right to lose, unless she is 
prepared to sacrifice her womanly nature for 
personal independence, or is compelled by stern 
necessity to crush down as much as possible her 
womanliness, to save herself and others from 
want. Physiological disabilities necessarily ex- 
clude woman from many avocations requiring 
strength and physical effort, and from others 
which would effectually destroy every element 
of a true womanly nature. Society, therefore, 
owes it to its own welfare and necessity, that no 
further disabilities should be laid upon them 
than those which arise from the permanent and 
essential elements of their nature. Every im- 
pediment arising out of mere social habit or 
prejudice should be removed out of their way; 
they should be furnished with every advantage 
which a complete education could give them, 
and then should be welcomed into every avoca- 
tion for which they would be thus fitted, and 
should receive for their services in any position 
they could fill an equal compensation with men. 

We are in this direction and thus far emphat- 
ically for "women's rights;" their right to full 
pay for labor, their right to enter any vocation 



230 THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY. 

of life for which they deem themselves qualified, 
and which does not eliminate the womanly ele- 
ment out of them, and more than all, their 
right to be protected in every right and inter- 
est pertaining to their happiness and welfare. 
It is sheer barbarism and wanton cruelty to bar 
them out of some of the lucrative employments 
simply because they are women, and to consign 
them in multitudes to the overcrowded voca- 
tions of sewing, teaching, and household service. 

Out of all these agitations we are confident 
good will come. In time, extravagances and ex- 
crescences will slough away, and what is good, 
and true, and wise, and just will remain. A 
broader hfe, and at the same time .a nobler 
womanhood, will open for the women of the 
future. Their own instincts will place the true 
boundary line between the capabilities and of- 
fices of the two different sexes. In the mean 
time let women take heart. They are not in 
captivity. The boundless future is theirs, and 
they will have their full share in the results of 
all real progress and of all true reforms. The 
law of service is on them as it is on man ; they 
must bear their share of the necessary burdens 
and sorrows of our common human life. Much 



WHAT CAN WOMEN DO? 23 1 

of their service must ever consist in suffering, 
as most of men's consists in toil. Before both 
there are fields of endeavor white with beckoning, 
harvests. In every department of charity and 
religion, in literature, in reforms, in ministering 
to the wants and woes of humanity, women have 
open and still opening doors set before them, 
which no man will desire to close. Let them 
enter them and work. 



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